DEFINING THE GREEN
Let’s start by defining some of the parameters. We tried to write this a few times and there was some confusion around “what exactly is the Village Green?” so we are going to brush off our year 11 debating hat and define the topic. For our purposes the Village Green is the series of shops and greenery itself by the lake. This includes the Oranga building and the Amphitheatre (which we will leave untouched except for some better lighting and some inbuilt speakers for acoustic evening gigs). The second part of this discussion is we want you to assume for this to really make sense that some of the other things have happened that we talk about in this issue. The Cowshed is gone. Replaced with a Bakehouse, a laundromat and a mobile repair place backing on to one of several of our car park structures. There is a Union Shop with the WSU selling merchandise and dairy type food as well as second-hand laptops. Finally Sue has taken her delicious shrimp sticks, Kahurangi, and Unimart up to the Pā.
GRASS FIRST
It is ABSOLUTELY time for the grass to go. Fight us! We love having a beautiful campus, we love having a green campus, we love the ducks. The only thing we don’t love is the fact that you can only use the green for two months of the year. For that one patch of grass it is time to be replaced with something, manageable, synthetic, and useable.
STAGE
While we are at it lets get rid of the stage. This one is pretty simple. Let’s realign the whole green by moving the stage on to the edge of the lake. Lakes are cool but concerts with just a small hint of electrocution, that is bringing something new to the party.
COVER
Spoiler alert, this is where shit gets weirder and a little unrealistic. What if the roof above Momento could be extended like a sports stadium and retracted at the touch of a button to cover more of the green? We are living in a brave new world where robots can drive cars and reality stars can be both dumb and President at the same time. Surely it is time for an automated retractable roof.
BBQ’S AND PICNIC TABLES
Back to reality for a second. A couple of free to use BBQ stations just like you would see in parks and at Waterworld. Build in a few picnic tables and some solar charging and you have got your own place to cook steak sandwiches on frybread. That may be as close as we get to touching the Sun.
ORANGA – GROUND LEVEL
Ok, now lets have a bit of fun. What if we turned Oranga into a proper food kiosk. Played with the layout a bit, even built it out at the bottom but bought in some genuine food options from the big brands:
– Start with a Tank. Delicious, healthy, and likely to employ students. Everybody wins when there is orange juice.
– Restoring the Maccas to its original home. Long before it was Sue’s, that kitchen belonged to a man named Ronald and we want our McFlurries back damnit!
– Fish and Chips, Sorry Mei Wah… location, location, location.
– A Roast Dinner / Hangi Shop. We have international students and we are failing them miserably. Anyone who goes to Kingitanga knows the value of a good hangi. It is as kiwi as can be. Add to that the option to go “full British” and we are achieving perfect harmony.
– Something, something, something vegan. Ok, you caught us. We aren’t great with the vegan vegetarian thing and rather than just say Two Birds we are simply going to say find a vegan “enterprise” and put it on campus so we can all feel good about the planet and guilty about chicken nuggets.
– Finally, a Duck Island. This one may be controversial among some of the Ben and Jerry fangirls in the Nexus office and that one idiot pushing for a cupcake store and a Starbucks, but we have science on our side. After extensive testing we have discovered that the Nexus Designer is the only good person to come from Sacred Heart. Ergo, if we put a Duck Island on campus we don’t have to go to the one on Grey Street and deal with year 11 girls ever again. They can be so mean!
Add to that a discount card that we are also using in our bar precinct and a profit sharing arrangement that would mean a tiny percentage goes back to student hardship and clubs.
ORANGA – TOP LEVEL
So the part nobody knows is that at the top of Oranga are some really nice offices with killer views, and some uni staff who (sorry) need to leave. Why? High end dining. We all love Maccas but that isn’t where you take that special person in your life to celebrate your three week anniversary, or that test coming back negative. Fine dining, elevated lake views. We could really step up our Nexus Blind Date game.
CURSE OF THE BONGO
Momento and Bongo are the last survivors. They have outlasted 2 banks, an STA, and a bunch of other short term businesses. Part of our retail section will finalise what it all looks like but the simple thing we can say is that chemists, banks, unimart, a sushi place, and a Momento don’t all work together. We need a clearer definition of our retail sectors.
AND FINALLY…
This section was getting a little too sensible. With the exception of the retractable roof, we believe that the University absolutely should do all of this. So in the spirit of wacky shit they can say no to, we want to add building a second story right above Momento and turning the whole second floor into Laser Tag. Why? Laser Tag is awesome.
