CityUps live tomorrow night at FESTA!

Tomorrow night (Saturday 25 October) CityUps is live in central Christchurch. The Festival of Transitional Architecture invites people of all ages to join in for an incredible night out at the city of the future, designed and created by the next generation of architects, and have the city humming with people, colour and excitement.

Over the past week, a diverse range of installation partners have helped ready the vacant sites and build the twelve metre scaffolding frames on the corner of Manchester, High and Lichfield that support the students’ towering, glowing installations. Led by Studio Christchurch, over 250 students from CPIT, Unitec and The University of Auckland transform two blocks of Christchurch’s central city tomorrow night with outrageous designs and create their vision of a future city.

The students explore the theme of The Future Will Be Live with live, light architecture that regenerates the centre. There are thirteen designs that invite interaction from the public including ScopeCity, a twelve metre walk-in kaleidoscope where new patterns are created by the public’s movement; the geometrical structure Synthesis, which creates light pulses when the public activates the heart rate monitor in its interior; Equilibrium’s kinetic sculpture that uses pre-recorded and live digital projections so that the audience both experiences and participates in the installation; and Continuum where the public can eat under a canopy of floating light shards. These are just some of the incredible futuristic installations the students have created.

Local businesses, artists and innovative individuals have partnered up with student studios, so that each spectacular design has a buzzing urban space associated with it. Anissa Victoria’s Vintage Twilight Market, Twisted Hop, Cassels & Sons, The Food Collective, Cake by Anna, Street Games, a dance hall, an all ages youth venue, RAD Bikes bike disco and much more add to the atmosphere.

There is also a digital dimension to the city of the future: CityUps+ is a special digital app, created on a platform developed by HIT Lab NZ, which allows the public to view virtual future Christchurch created by architects from across the globe. The free app can be downloaded from Google Play and Apple App Store. Visit the Visionarium during CityUps if you need help.

All are invited to participate in this free, urban-scale public event. Be part of CityUps and help to animate these creative and temporary city spaces. Come in for a great night out and make Christchurch feel like a city again.

For FESTA 2014’s fullprogramme, which includes a range of projects and events that explore future scenarios, please visit www.festa.org. The rain day for CityUps Sunday 26 October.

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