It is always exciting to see an architectural proposal finally realised, especially when the end result looks just like the original rendering, and it must be even more exciting if you̓re two young architecture students.

Matt Ritani and Declan Burn, two fifth-year students in the School of Architecture at Victoria University of Wellington, won the Brick Bay Folly 2015 competition to build a temporary architectural folly at the Brick Bay vineyard at Snells Beach, north of Auckland.

The winning design, Belly of the Beast, is a site-specific installation: a 12m-high abstract tower which is clad in tyre-tread shingles with a 7.5m² internal space set around a working fireplace. It adopts a sustainability ethos of ʻmaterials in transit̓, meaning that each of the components will have a second life afterwards.

The pair received the $25,000 competition prize late last year and has completed the folly within two months. “We̓re so stoked that we were given the opportunity to build this project. It was great fun and we learnt so much through the process of construction,” said Burn. “If a problem arose, then we had to ask, ʻwhat do we do now?̓, so we learnt to negotiate with contractors. It was exciting and intense to work to a tight deadline and for a real client: Brick Bay Sculpture Trust.”

The project was supported also by Resene, Architecture New Zealand and Unitec, who invited architects, architectural students and graduates of architecture to propose large-scale projects and installations that explore contemporary interpretations of the architectural folly.

The judges were: architect Richard Harris from Jasmax; Tony van Raat, associate professor at Unitec; Richard Didsbury from the Brick Bay Sculpture Trust; Jonathan Organ, artist and arts manager at the Brick Bay Sculpture Trust; Justine Harvey, editor of Architecture New Zealand; and Karen Warman from Resene.

Burns describes their design as “a large, shaggy beast that sits in the landscape, all covered in ragged, textural recycled tyres. However, conceptually, when you enter the project, you actually become the beast: you are the belly of the beast, which is bodily red in colour, and you identify the ribs – the structural steel members that run up the interior space.” He adds, “When the fireplace is lit, the condition changes into a murky, smokey environment. It intensifies the experience of being inside the belly.”

Ritani and Burn explain that, during the initial design process, they spent considerable time trying to figure out what the judges might be looking for in a winning scheme, “We wanted to relate our design to art practice,” says Ritani. “We looked at the development of sculpture, from the object on the podium to minimalist sculpture off the podium, to reading sculpture as an experiential architectural space.”

Is it a furry pelt or a prickly cousin of the Brick Bay tower or, perhaps, a ka-kahu or cloak? “Conceptually, Belly of the Beast is reading architecture as a gesture to many references but not one single meaning,” suggests Ritani, “Now it’s in the public sphere and it̓s fine for it to be any of those things.”

The pair hopes that viewers will respond to Belly of the Beast’s inherent humour. In homage to the notion of ‘folly’, the project doesn’t take itself too seriously.

A selection of the entries into the Brick Bay Folly 2015 competition will be showcased at an exhibition during Designday Pro and Urbis Designday 2015, which will be held over two days on 20 and 21 March 2015.

Belly of the Beast officially opens on Sunday 22 March from 10am to 5pm, with Tony van Raat giving a public talk at 2pm, followed by a conversation with Declan Burn.