The Short Story:
PLEASE DON’T RAIN !
Building an outdoor cardboard cupcake pavilion in Auckland’s inclement weather was always going to be a daring move. Luckily for us a mixture of prayer and “whatever” attitude, in equal parts, somehow managed to bring out the sun for our event the “Cupcake Pavilion” during Auckland Architecture Week.
After establishing our collective, OH.NO.SUMO. at the beginning of 2009, we became interested in an event that would involve the wider community in some sort of architectural experience. This quickly turned into a fundraising effort selling 1000 cupcakes to benefit the Starship Children’s Hospital, through the Starship Foundation.
Sponsors were sought to provide valuable support as we pushed through trying to develop a design. Eventually the architecture emerged as two intersecting double curved surfaces produced from lasercut corrugated card ribs. When combined these created small cubby hole openings for each cupcake to sit in. After rounding up volunteers and a warehouse to prefabricate in, the pavilion literally touched down outside the Britomart train station in central Auckland.
What ensued was a frenzy of hungry downtown workers; eager to get their hands on beautifully crafted gourmet cupcakes. The pavilion succeeded in selling out of the 1000 cupcakes in just 90 minutes, but more crucially it succeeded in proving that the public have an appetite for fun public architecture.
AWARDS
2009 — AAA Cavalier Bremworth Award — Open Category — Joint Winner
The Long Story:
The origins of the Cupcake Pavilion probably were pushed by 2 things.
Oh.No.Sumo had recently formed and we were eager to put our collective energies into a project of some kind. From early hangouts it was clear this would be an installation of some sorts but when and where we were unsure. Our early interests also lay in developing a community oriented event of some kind. Lemonade stands and other nostalgic notions were thrown about, but the idea of a bake sale was something that made so much sense to us in drawing people together.
It was also early 2009 and by this time the worldwide financial pressures of 2008 had meant for many in our graduating year, no jobs. This fact was not lost on a group of lecturers at the University of Auckland and they called a meeting in late March amongst recent graduates to discuss the formation of a ‘design group’ to help keep motivation and skills up. From this a suggestion was made that projects should be developed for the Auckland Architecture Week that coming October. This time goal cemented our early thoughts together and we set off to fill in all the spaces to make it happen.
Bake Sale Advertising Poster
Thank you to our sponsors:
AMCOR KIWI PACKAGING
www.amcor.com
DELISH CUPCAKES
www.delishcupcakes.co.nz
G.B. PETTY DIEMAKERS
www.diemakers.co.nz
FABRIC STRUCTURE SYSTEMS
www.fabricstructure.co.nz
HI-Q COMPONENTS
www.hiq.co.nz
SHOW LIGHT & POWER
www.showlight.co.nz
DULUX
www.dulux.co.nz