2025 Tātuhi | Drawing Archive Selection

The A+W NZ Tātuhi / Drawing Architecture: Sarah Treadwell Archive annual acquisition is Tracing Pōneke’s Creative Communities by Tom Arbuckle. Tom’s drawing is from his thesis Artistic Activism at Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka. The drawing has been selected in recognition of the use of craft and technology in aesthetic and generative ways and maintaining a focus on drawing in the design process.

Selection Team comments;

The drawing here seems to be in itself a landscape, avoiding the flatness of its own 2D surface. The delicacy of the marks and the landscape effects of the folds contribute to communicating the thought process as part of the developing work, a mesmerising sway of feeling a expression roving across the drawing. The three modes of marking seem to tell a different story across its surface, with a very playful result. The scale of the drawing amplifies its presence, increasing its ability to simultaneously function as a landscape, a model, and an invitation to discovery. The fluidity in both mark-making and surface possibly alludes to airflows and waterways, as well as fabric. There is a sense that the drawing is like washing hanging on the line in some suburban setting.

Selection Team 2025;

• Sarah Treadwell

• Ashleigh Smith

• Marian Macken

• Karamia Muller

• Simon Twose

• Sharon Jansen

• Lynda Simmons

TRACING PŌNEKE’S CREATIVE COMMUNITIES

Author: Tom Arbuckle

Drawing title: Tracing Pōneke’s Creative Communities

Thesis Title: Artistic Activism

Size: 5000x800mm

Material: Ink, charcoal, pencil and acetone transfer

Thesis Supervisor: Jan Smitheram

University: Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka

The A+W NZ Drawing Archive has been supported since its inception by Metalcraft, who each  year provide a koha to the author of the drawing selected, in acknowledgement of the permission for ongoing use of their digital image on the A+W NZ website.

The primary purpose of the A+W NZ Tātuhi / Drawing Architecture Archive is to record drawing styles and influences over years and decades, and we hope that the archive becomes a valuable resource for students, architects and historians of the future. The annual selection is made from end-of-year thesis projects from all architecture schools in New Zealand by a team led by Sarah Treadwell. This year’s selection panel was made up of Sarah Treadwell, Marian Macken, Ashleigh Smith, Karamia Müller, Simon Twose and Lynda Simmons.

The foundational 2017 drawing is by Sarah, whom the archive is named after. Subsequent selections have been from Lusitania Vete (2018), Matthew Boyuan Cao (2019), Devyani Sethi (2020), Jonothan Morrish (2021), Mikaela King(2022). Lise’s drawing will be the seventh addition to the digital archive.

words by Lynda Simmons