Communique 2012: Kim Sinclair - The imaginary hero in the real world 
(Architecture and Planning)
7 March 2012
6pm - 7pm
Venue: Lecture Theatre 401, Building 401, 20 Symonds Street
Host: School of Architecture and Planning
Cost: Free
Contact info: Natalie Guy
Contact email: n.guy@auckland.ac.nz
Website: Communique 2012
Sponsor: New Zealand Wood
Not many people in architecture have an Oscar - and a BAFTA as well. Kim Sinclair graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture (Honours) from The University of Auckland and after a period designing and building a couple of very interesting houses, worked in New Zealand’s re-emergent film industry of the 1980s. He is now a designer working with Stephen Spielberg, Peter Jackson and James Cameron on films like Tintin and Avatar.
The design of big budget contemporary films like these should not be underestimated—their success relies on the construction of enormously detailed and thought-out artificial universes to sustain the story. They rival the effort that goes into our more prosaic day to day built surrounds and that of course is their great attraction: they offer new worlds and alternate realities. But to accomplish this, these films push technological boundaries and involve input from a globalised team of designers. Given the acceleration of the digital world and the robotic revolution just round the corner, architects may well learn a few things from this discipline. If none of that works out, Sinclair still lives in a good old timber house of his own design in Kohimarama.
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