{"id":3915,"date":"2016-05-26T02:26:49","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T02:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=3915"},"modified":"2016-05-26T20:28:25","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T20:28:25","slug":"skip-to-my-lou-kawakawa-nz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=3915","title":{"rendered":"Skip To My Lou – Kawakawa, NZ"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_0867\"It can be very frustrating waiting for a weather window, and finding enough activities to keep ourselves occupied becomes a bit of a challenge. But when our buddies on \u2018Escape Velocity\u2019 suggested an outing to the public toilets at Kawakawa some 10km away, we thought they must have a particularly severe case of cabin fever (or something much worse).<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0864\"
visiting the loo has never been so much fun!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As it turns out, the Hundertwasser toilets at Kawakawa are a famous landmark in the North Island, even signposted on the tourist route!<\/p>\n

Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian artist, architect and passionate ecologist who made his home in Kawakawa in the 1970\u2019s. His most famous building in Vienna, the Hundertwasserhaus<\/em> apartment block has undulating floors (\u201can uneven floor is a melody to the feet\u201d) and trees growing from inside the rooms. He encouraged the idea of planting trees in an urban environment – “If man walks in nature’s midst, then he is nature’s guest and must learn to behave as a well-brought-up guest\u201d and wrote numerous manifestos on the preservation of the environment.<\/p>\n

\"The
The tree Hundertwasser planted is integral to the design of the toilets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He became a well-loved part of the community in Kawakawa, and his final commission in 1997 was to design and build the public toilets in the main street. And what a fun and quirky project they are \u2013 built out of local bricks and bottles, with tiles designed by local school students, and with his trademark garden roof and tree as the centerpiece.<\/p>\n

\"The
The bottle wall at the Hundertwasser toilets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"There's
There’s that undulating floor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tiles
Tiles designed by the local students mark the ladies entrance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"inside
inside the inner sanctum of the ladies toilets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"There's
There’s a pixie in the garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Even
Even the street lamps are quirky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Across
Across the street is a fabulous mural<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"IMG_0877\"
detail on the mural<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The mural and museum, Kawakawa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had a great time exploring this little town and the legacy that Hundertwasser left, and it was a welcome interlude from twiddling our thumbs waiting for the weather gods to give us safe passage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It can be very frustrating waiting for a weather window, and finding enough activities to keep ourselves occupied becomes a bit of a challenge. But when our buddies on \u2018Escape Velocity\u2019 suggested an outing to the public toilets at Kawakawa some 10km away, we thought they must have a particularly severe case of cabin fever … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Skip To My Lou – Kawakawa, NZ”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-svtoucan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6B46t-119","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3915"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3919,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3915\/revisions\/3919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}