On 11th May 2023, Guy Marriage (Senior Lecturer), Jessica Freire (University Lecturer) and Alexis Watts (Senior Student Recruitment Adviser) from Victoria University of Wellington, visited PNBHS to promote their tertiary programmes to the Year 12 Design and Visual Communication (TDV) students. Mr Marriage and Ms Freire presented an overview of the Architecture and Design Innovation design programmes. They also showcased the amazing range of design projects accomplished at the tertiary levels under these design programmes. Moreover, the lecturers gave high praise to the work our boys produce at the secondary level.

Following on after the visit, Mr Barwick and Mr Kwan organised a day visit to the faculty located in Vivian Street, Wellington. Accompanied by Mr Kwan and Mr Pearce, 34 Year 12 and Year 13 TDV students elected to visit the faculty on 29th June. We were welcomed to the building and the visit began with Tane Moleta (Senior Lecturer) and Cameron Wells (Applications Engineer at Trimble Inc.) delivering a tutorial on parametric design. Parametric design uses mathematical algorithms to create complicated products and structures, often characterized by the suspended and organic forms. Jean Novel, Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry are some of the most famous architects who are well-known for their parametric approach to design. Students had a taste of using Trimble Creator to model a few parametric objects. Mr Moleta and Mr Kwan are currently planning to include parametric tutorial sessions for our students in the future.

In the second session, students toured through the impressive facilities and the basement workshops which contain industrial-sized laser cutters, 3D printers and milling machines including one which is controlled by a robotic arm. We also walked through the design studios and specialist computer suites dedicated for the Architecture, Architectural Science and Design Innovation programmes.

After the lunch break, Dylan Horrocks (Lecturer and Practising Cartoonist) delivered a fun drawing session. Students were all given the same starting point for a comic strip and asked how their story would end. The boys then passed the comic strip around the group to embellish their narratives with their witty imagination and story-telling abilities.

Overall, the boys had a great introduction to the creative tertiary education environment. The enrolment officer is returning to PNBHS in the near future to go over the option choices and the scholarship awards. Meanwhile, students can find information about different courses and career options by visiting our DVC subject page https://bit.ly/tdvpnbhs | Courses and Careers.

Mr Kwan