Following the success of last year’s winning entry Belly of the Beast, designed by
Declan Burn and Matt Ritani, five finalists have been announced for the Brick Bay Folly 2016 competition. The aim of the Folly award is to support young and emerging architects, or students in accredited New Zealand architecture programmes, to explore the intersections between architecture and sculpture, and the increaing overlap between the two disciplines.

The jury consists of Richard Harris from Jasmax, Anna Didsbury and Jonathan Organ from Brick Bay Sculpture Trust, Tony van Raat from Unitec, Joanne Duggan from Resene, Greg Pritchard from Fletcher Construction, Justine Harvey from Architecture New Zealand and Declan Burn, the 2015 co-winner.

Golden Tickle is a protective timber shell clad in black bark strips that invites visitors to duck under then stand up inside its golden interior void. It is designed by Sophie Hamer of Fearon Hay Architects and Stuart Taylor from Bevin+Slessor Architects.

Primal Bell, by Cam Deynzer from Jasmax, and Katie Braatvedt, who is currently a master’s student at The University of Auckland, draws viewers through a sliced, wedge-shaped entrance into a metallic bell-shaped space lined in flattened, recycled steel drums.

Daughter of the Swamp is an enormous eel-pot form marooned on the edge of a pond: an elongated form of coloured steel arches that wobble in the breeze. It is designed by Sacha Milojevic from Patterson Associates, Raphaela Rose from Jasmax, Ryan David Mahon, a postgraduate student at The University of Auckland and Edward Roberts from GeoPacific Engineering, Inc.

A Mulligan – The Folly of the Edited Self, by Brad Balle from Bossley Architects, is a platform that carefully edits the surrounding world using window frames, mirrors and lenses to comment on our socially connected, security-monitored built environment.

Proto Radiolaria – Repository of Distant Waters, by Kim Huynh, Adam Hunt, Ricky Wong, Eq Hong and Joyee Kwan, students at The University of Auckland, creates a dialogue between its light-porous structure and the vast landscape. This complex assemblage is constructed with repeating figure-of-eight forms made from recyclable plastic sheeting.

The 2016 winner will receive an overall $30,000 grant towards realising the proposed project, including $15,000 from Resene, $10,000 in building supplies and services from Fletcher Building, and $5,000-worth of advice and fabrication resources from Unitec.

The finished project will be installed in early March 2016 and will be exhibited for a period of two years.