Bautier Books

Locations of Interest

In December 2021, architectural photographer David Straight was commissioned by Objectspace to document the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the built environment in Tāmaki Makaurau. The outcome is a new publication featuring photographs taken at eight sites across the city – dispersed between two unprecedented regional boundaries instated under the Covid-19 Alert Level system.

Straight’s photographs are introduced by Fixed in Place, a text by Kim Paton written in the first half of 2022 that presents a personal reflection on the contemporary interventions that emerged within the city, alongside the residue of architectures tied to past pandemics.

Most of the physical signs of Covid-19 in our communities – testing facilities, vaccination centres, travel borders – are transitory. Locations of Interest functions as a document of these sites, both to record them for posterity and to provoke thought about our built environment as a site of socio-political action. What kind of access and use is prioritised in its design, and how well can it adapt and shift in response to the needs of its users?

• Published by Objectspace, 2023
• Hard cover, 113p. 178x250mm