Heather's Stuff

Britomart is the area surrounding the Britomart Transport Centre in Auckland – where the majority of city bound trains and busses terminate. It was upgraded by architectural firm Jasmax in the recent years and it is truly awesome (you know when you stop and gasp and go wow!). The train station is not enormous (compared to Paddington, London for example), but it’s quite momentous nonetheless. There are plenty of funky coffee shops, cafes, product and clothing stores in the vicinity. My favouritest clothing store interior on Customs St East had a no-photos policy. Bummer. But fully reasonable. The interior was spectacular and understandably after spending a good deal of money and effort getting it just so – I wouldn’t want images floating around to be copied.

		Inspiration came for Auckland’s volcanic history, translated by these domes. These draw light into the station and allow street level traffic to look into the train station.
At the entrance / exit are some baby trees that have plenty of room to grow big and strong. These are the ones typically found in NZ forests. The wood sleepers are from train line excavations.	This dome has has water running over it … look at fourth pic along, this is at street level – a nice water feature in the middle of the city.	The trains are also sleek silver – all nicely dressed up to match the station interior.
The entrance to the transport centre was originally a post office. The architectural features were retained and restored.	Quite the contrast walking from the sleek silver into the old grandeur.
	Outside the train station are the bus stops. Love the super modern building in the background.	And equally love the exposed brick of a building nearby.
The Britomart logo is used often along the streets nearby. The font is really fun.
Super modern, then classical and Victorian style old. Fantastic contrast. I hope the old buildings get to stay forever – without the old classics the modern buildings may begin to look a bit blah.		How fantastic is the reflection of the sky and cloud on this mirrored building?
Carrol Boyes has infiltrated! This was taken from the shop front of ‘Living and Giving’ - ‘Loads of Living’'s twin sibling	A panel from a temporary wall put up around a construction site.	The skinniest tall building.
This is inside the Living and Giving store - fabulous wood pillar into the exposed ceiling showing the lighting and aircon structure	Section of the ceiling that has a bit of pressed ceiling and some exposed rafters.	Remember in January I posted about Ducks! ha ha – the ducks have swum across the sea to NZ.
nood – new objects of desire is a shop that sells furniture and homeware products. I’m a bit on the fence with this one because the goods that they sell are copies (with minor changes in shape or scale or detail) of designer goods. So you can get a Le Corbusier looking Chaise Lounge at much less than the real one. So it’s great that the average dude can get designer furniture, but the designer that came up with the design, did all the prototypes, and selected the perfect material, gets ripped off in the end.		The Britomart area.

The Auckland City Farmer’s market is held on Saturday mornings. Farmers and vendors sell their wares - fresh fruit and veg, baked goods, sauces and dips, oils…yummeeee. The vendors are full of pride for what they produce, friendly smiley people. The goods are top quality and well priced. We went through on 30 Oct – Halloween .

	View of the market coming from the Britomart Transport Centre side	Lovely exposed brick backdrop to the market.
Loved the colours of the veg!
This guy was rolling tortellinis, so so fast, and each one looked just as neat as the previous one.	For my mid-morning snack a nutella crepe served up by this lovely lady who had also recently watched the movie Julie vs Julia	Sausages on a roll! Much better than the sausages on a slice of white bread typically sold.
A good way to store and transport your purchases	The bicycle an alternate storage – transport option. This kid was wandering around in his nifty red socks munching on a yellow capsicum.
A halloween witch stocking up on her goodies	So we may have lost ‘Blanket Man’ to Wellington, but seems we have ‘Non-matching-pyjama-legs blanket man’ here.	A proper kiwi needs no shoes
Pretty in pink! A little taste of home.