Cumulus Building

It might be that I'm too much of an outsider of the architectural scene of New Zealand. But looking at it on a global scale: there's not a whole lot of fresh and exciting architectural work coming from that country.

That doesn't mean that the country doesn't bring anything forth worth of architectural acknowledgement. For instance, there's the cumulus building by Patterson Associates. In itself, it is a rather simple commercial construction of eight boutiques around an internal courtyard. But it's really the facade that makes this building into something special. One could've guessed it by the name: the word "cumulus" refers to a bright white cloud formation. That's a referral to the term "Aotearoa", the Maori name for New Zealand, meaning as much as "the land of the long white cloud", making this term a direct visual inspiration.

The "cloud" of this building appears to exist out of a crisp cloth, but is in fact made out of concrete. The pattern relates to "Siapo", the traditional pacific tapa cloth. All in all, it might seem a bit literal and superficial, but the result is spectacular.