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School of Future Environments Huri te Ao

@aut_sofe

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Architecture, engineering, the built environment & creative technologies at Auckland University of Technology - AUT @autuni

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Reporting live from the Amazon 🌿🌎

More than 50,000 people have gathered in the small Brazilian city of Belém, in the Amazon rainforest, for the UN’s COP30 climate change conference.

One of them is AUT’s Dr Priscila Besen, a Senior Lecturer in sustainable architecture.

Dr Besen spoke to the NZ Herald about why she’s there.

🔗 Watch the interview at link in bio. by @aut_sofe

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a year ago

Researchers, led by AUT Associate Professor Terri-Ann Berry, have found airborne asbestos in kids’ play sand.

This footage shows a member of the research team experimenting with samples of children’s play sand in a purpose-built enclosure in Auckland, New Zealand.

The research aimed to determine if the asbestos fibres could become airborne during play.

Inhaled asbestos fibres can lead to diseases, including cancer.

Although no amount of asbestos exposure is considered safe, not all asbestos exposure will lead to a cancer diagnosis.

🔗Find out more at the link in our bio. by @aut_sofe

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3 months ago

How do I find out if my iwi or hapū are developing housing and how do I get involved? 🏠

From iwi-led developments to hapū-run papakāinga, AUT’s Jade Kake explains where to look, who to contact.

Watch Jade’s latest episode of Kāinga Matters, link in AUTNews’ bio. by @aut_sofe

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6 months ago

This Saturday (10 October) AUT Associate Professor Janine Randerson and Dr Rachel Shearer present a talk about their new book chapter ‘Field of Attuning’ at the Govett Brewster art gallery in New Plymouth, at the launch of Direct Bodily Empathy – Sensing Sound Anna Briers (ed.), a Perimeter Books edition.

The chapter describes attuning fields in Rachel Shearer’s Whakapapa of Shimmers (2025, pictured above) and Len Lye’s Particles in Space (1979).

The book launch will include a special screening of Len Lye’s Swinging the Lambeth Walk, contributions by Rachel Shearer and Janine Randerson, Roger Horrocks’ reading of Len Lye’s Sense Days, and a reading of Gascia Ouzounian’s Counterlistening.

Govett Brewster Senior Curator and Editor Anna Briers and Head of Public Practice and Creative Enquiry Lleah Smith will then be in conversation. Guided by the question ‘What can sound do?’ they will connect ideas from across the afternoon and the publication, exploring sound as material, sensation, politics, and a way of knowing.

As the formal programme comes to a close, the cinema will shift into a deep listening experience through an audio playback of Mia Salsjö’s A Score for the Len Lye Centre, performed by musicians from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. by @aut_sofe

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10 days ago

Associate Professor Clinton Watkins, a sound and video artist, experimental music composer and documentary film maker, is currently on an artist resdency in Shanghai.

Associate Professor Watkins' works create immersive, sensorial sonic and visual experiences and encourage open interpretation of memory, reflection and physical awareness.

Photo 1: Watkins performing to archive footage of ice breaker ships in Antartica at @trigger_shanghai

Photo 2: Watkins performing his work Depth of Field at @fudanuni_official by @aut_sofe

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11 days ago

What’s the strangest place you’ve found asbestos?

This throwaway question exposed a global scandal: cancer-causing asbestos was present in children’s sand toys sold in New Zealand, Australia, the US and UK, Canada, Japan, France, Italy the Netherlands and more.

In this episode of @autuni podcast ‘Hey, Did You Know?’ Associate Professor Terri-Ann Berry talks about what asbestos actually is, how she came to study it, and how her research into its presence in children’s play sand began.

Plus bonus asbestos-eating fungi 🍄

Listen at the Spotify link in bio, or wherever you get your podcasts. by @aut_sofe

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12 days ago

When Surendar Jayachandran started studying to be an architect he wanted to design double curved structures, like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

The trouble is these amazing buildings are complex and costly to build.

So Surendar designed a construction system that requires less pre-planning and assembly effort for his PHD.

“Imagine it as Lego for curved buildings,” he writes of his research in the Sunday Star-Times.

🔗Link in bio.

#AUTResearch #Architecture #CurvedBuildings #BuildingInnovation #FutureOfDesign by @aut_sofe

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a month ago

Earlier this year, we caught up with four talented and passionate AUT architecture students who showcased their work in a two-week pop-up exhibition at Panmure Library. 🌿

Their projects are part of a wider collaboration with Auckland Urban Design Office’s Panmure Masterplan, involving over 300 students over the past three years to imagine and explore a thriving, just and regenerative future for Panmure.

We chatted with them about what inspired their work, why it matters and what they believe is important for Panmure’s future. ✨ by @aut_sofe

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a month ago

Do biota want to collaborate?

Wednesday 12 August 2026 at 5.30pm
WZ Building foyer AUT University, –24 St Paul Street, Auckland Central, Auckland 1010

🔗 RSVP to this free event at the link in bio

Critical questions around relationality and difference emerge for artist-scientists, scientist-artists and ecological activists working with or against biotechnology and AI (ancestral intelligence/ artificial intelligence) in their creative research. The panellists Alizee Armet, Mark Harvey, Yitong Tseo and Jo Jo Burzynska discuss what we can learn from more-than-human biota for our planetary futures, and how we might account for time scales that are faster or slower than human life spans; and ultimately whether more-than-human entities can desire collaboration at all.

The panel will be hosted by Janine Randerson and Ziggy Lever.

This free and public LASER (Leonardo Art-Science Evening Rendezvous) is presented in partnership with the SOFE Thought Leaders series.

Image: Alizée Armet, Ghostly plants of damaged worlds (2023-2025) credits: Hans Marn/Kapelica Gallery taken in WZ Building 6-24 St Paul St, Auckland by @aut_sofe

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2 months ago

Associate Professor Clinton Watkins’ solo exhibition ‘nothing_everything’ opens at @starkwhite Gallery on Friday 7th August, 5.30–7.30pm.

What is the opposite of the art gallery’s appealing white box? Perhaps it is the disquieting, Saturnian and nihilistic black cube. Watkins’ new installation at Starkwhite interrogates the culture and aesthetic of the solicitous and “pleasant” gallery experience, choosing instead to cast it aside for a memorable exercise in alienation and, perhaps, transcendence.

A leading New Zealand sound and video artist, Watkins investigates how sound and image shape our understanding of the world. Drawing on experimental music, minimalist aesthetics, and immersive installation, his practice spans custom-built audiovisual systems, video projection, and sculptural sound environments. His work has been exhibited throughout New Zealand and internationally, including recent presentations at the Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, and Centre Pompidou / IRCAM, Paris.

Centred around a newly composed vinyl sound work, nothing_everything unfolds through darkness, strobing light and immersive sound, inviting audiences into an environment where perception is heightened and the boundaries between image, sound and space begin to dissolve.

This exhibition runs until 19 September 2026.

Image credit: Clinton Watkins, Into the Abyss, 2026 by @aut_sofe

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3 months ago

Both of NZ's major parties want to boost household solar. ☀️ 💡

But new research from @autuni's Franklin Nkado, Dat Doan, Ali Ghaffarian Hoseini and Esther Aigwi suggests wider uptake also depends on policy certainty, design and long-term returns.

🔗Read the @theconversation.aunz article at the link in bio by @aut_sofe

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3 months ago

Creating a refugee camp from scratch, being taken hostage (twice) and a new-found love for drone fishing🐟

In the latest episode of @autuni Podcast Hey, Did You Know? Professor Regan Potangaroa opens up about his career as a global expert in humanitarian engineering and Māori-centred resilience.

Listen to Hey, Did You Know? wherever you get your podcasts! by @aut_sofe

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3 months ago