ArtBox

2013

A temporary gallery space in post-quake Ōtautahi.

Created to meet the need for art spaces in the central city in the years after the 2011 earthquakes, ArtBox was initially placed on the corner of Madras and St Asaph Streets, and later relocated across Madras to the Ara campus to provide a short-term precinct designed to seed a return of arts to the central city. It was used by Christchurch Art Gallery as a temporary space while their main building was impacted by the earthquake.



ArtBox was constructed with the Boxus system, a modular building concept developed by Field Studio director Andrew Just while he was working at F3 Design. Boxus was designed in response to the need for temporary, mobile structures in the post-earthquake environment in Christchurch. The Boxus system allows for a stable structure that can be used with minimal foundations and repurposed for permanent builds.

ArtBox was made from a cluster of 2.9 metre cube Boxus modules, with windows breaking up the walls and offering a sense of the space outside. The original site of ArtBox is now home to Boxed Quarter, which is a scaled up iteration designed by Field Studio using the Boxus system. 



Client: Martin Trusttum, Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology
Core design team: Andrew Just, Jessica Glen, John Leonard, Pippin Wright-Stow, Kyle Lewis, Rikki Berger, Paul Stanley-Boden 

Exhibition images: Burster Flipper Wobbler Dripper Spinner Stacker Shaker Maker, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, 15 February - 28 September 2014. Photography John Collie.  

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