Brick Bay Folly 2022 Winner: The Nest

We are delighted to announce that The Nest has been recognised in three separate design awards:

The Nest is now open at Brick Bay, to be enjoyed by all visitors.

‘As a bird would draw from its immediate surroundings, the folly recycles what lay before to create a nest: nature’s contextual architecture.’

The seventh and most recent Brick Bay Folly winner has now been officially announced and opened to the public in May 2022.

Joseph Trace, Brandon Carter-Chan and Nicholas Rowsby – three recent graduates of Auckland University's School of Architecture – submitted their winning entry The Nest in 2021. They designed and built their Folly while navigating the uncertainty of the 2021 lockdowns and were further challenged balancing the completion of the final year of their architecture degrees. The resulting 2022 Folly The Nest is a thought-provoking response to the landscape, resource use and the ever-present climate emergency.

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Inspired by a site visit to Brick Bay and witnessing a friendly pīwakawaka (fantail), The Nest references the delicate stacking and weaving of twigs. This creates a seemingly light structure, wrestling with the required stability of an interior that invites engagement and conversation. The weaving of timber forms a structural pattern that provides tiered seating and acts as a nest for people to inhabit.

Situated above a lake surrounded by mature exotic and native trees, the subtle use of Resene colours references the colours of the wingspan and tail of the pīwakawaka.

Nicholas Rowsby notes: “When we were conceptualising we always took into mind the beautiful pond that sits in front of our site and how we could frame that beautiful view. That's where a lot of the formation of ‘somewhere to rest, somewhere to take your time’ came into the design.”

Sustainability and the global timber shortage was top of mind for the winning team, proposing to recycle the timber from the deconstruction of the preceding Folly, The Wooden Pavilion 2019. This proved to be a painstaking task with the team managing to save and catalogue 797 linear metres of timber, resulting in the Folly being made up of approximately 95% recycled timber.

Judge Pip Cheshire commented: “In the nest we are seeing an interesting example of materials as scarce global resources being considered through their whole life cycle.”

The competition attracts a number of high calibre entries which are blind judged by a panel of industry experts who then mentor the team through the process. This year’s panel was chaired by renowned architect Pip Cheshire who recalls:

“The Folly programme is a great challenge, the growth in the designers’ knowledge, ability and confidence has been enormous, and the result is a beautiful piece of work that easily realises the potential of the original renders and offers a work that is both enigmatic and suggestive.”

The team were challenged by the process and can’t stress enough their appreciation for the support and expert advice that they received from their mentors throughout the construction of their winning design. Nicholas commented: “I’ve never really dealt hands-on with building anything, other than helping my dad around the house. For all three of us, completing our first building project that we have designed ourselves, it's just magical“.

Architectural follies are found around the world and their purpose is to inspire and delight audiences. The Brick Bay Folly project provides an opportunity for emerging architects to test their ideas on a real-life project, manage construction, solve contingencies and participate in physical construction.

The winning team is not only provided with the financial budget but a professional workshop space, equipment, and many hours of donated time from the project mentors. The major financial sponsors are Resene and Naylor Love. The project is also supported by Unitec, Cheshire Architects and Brick Bay, with professional photography by Sam Hartnett and publicity from media partner Architecture New Zealand.

Click here to read more on Architecture NOW.

Opening Ceremony Photos

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Brick Bay Folly 2022 Top 5

After another competitive judging round for the Folly competition, the finalists for 2021 have been announced.

  • Shifting Cultivation – Mishori Dunraj, Seth Schanzer and Annalise Mirus
  • Four Rooms in Full Colour – Katie Braatvedt, Cameron Deynzer and Matthew Torr
  • Caretaker – William Challacombe-King, Cameron Spicer and Tane Pamatatau
  • In Between the Rings of the Kauri – Angela Wong, Akane Suzuki, Lily Huang and Valerie Wong
  • The Nest – Nicholas Rowsby, Brandon Carter-Chan and Joseph Trace

Our congratulations go to the Top Five Teams — a fantastic achievement. There is a feature in the September 2021 print issue of Architecture NZ and online platform Architecture NOW. Click here to read all about them.

The 2021 Folly Judging Panel

The panel consisted of Pip Cheshire from Cheshire Architects, Philip Haycock from Naylor Love, Karen Warman from Resene (represented by Karmen Dumper), Peter Boardman from Structure Design, Yusef Patel from the School of Architecture Unitec, Chris Barton from Architecture New Zealand, Richard and Anna Didsbury from Brick Bay, and Raymond Yoo from the 2020 winning team Genealogy of the Pacific.


Brick Bay Folly 2022 Sponsors