Jessica Halliday

Halliday has a PhD in Art History at the University of Canterbury completed in 2005,[2] her thesis is about the design and construction of the Beehive which is the Executive Wing of the New Zealand Parliament.[3] After completing her PhD in 2005 Halliday worked in London at the Architectural Association from 2006 to 2007.[2]

Halliday was the director of the Festival of Transitional Architecture (FESTA) that was first presented in October 2012 and ended in 2018.[4][5] Ōtautahi Christchurch suffered from an earthquake in 2011 with widespread damage and loss of life.[6] FESTA was attended by thousands of people seeing temporary works of architecture.[7] The 2016 programme included three artists Juliet Arnott (Rekindle), Julia Morison and Julia Harvie with responses to architecture.[8]

Another job Halliday has had is for two years running the Ilam School of Fine Arts gallery.[9]

Halliday is the director and co-founder of Te Pūtahi Centre for Architecture and City Making in Ōtautahi, this followed on from FESTA.[4] They run events to inform and engage people in 'city making'.[10] Te Pūtahi have run Open Christchurch, an annual festival of architecture events founded in 2019 with open days of significant building and sites, in 2023 it had fifty-two buildings opened to tours and included a celebration of the work of Sir Miles Warren and Maurice Mahoney.[7] In 2021 it had 46 buildings including the St Andrew's College Centennial Chapel designed by Margaret Munro and Tūranga Central Library.[11] They also run participatory design workshops[12] and talks, for example a talk in 2022 was called The water city under climate stress about designing for water in Ōtautahi with climate change with a panelist including Matthew Bradbury from Te Puukenga Unitec, Hannah Lewthwaite, CCC Climate Resilience & Landscape Architect and Ben Brown (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Koroki, Ngāti Paoa) author and performer.[10]

...the design of our cities has a huge part to play in the future of the planet, climate breakdown and the possibility of regeneration. (Halliday 2019)[7]

Halliday is on the national committee for the New Zealand chapter of the organisation Organisation for the Documentation and Conservation of the Modern Movement in Architecture (DOCOMOMO).[4]

Halliday writes for Architecture Now, an online New Zealand architecture and design publication.[5]

• Long Live the Modern, New Zealand's New Architecture 1904–1984, editor Julia Gatley (2008) ISBN 978-1-86940-415-4 – contributing author

Halliday is a member of Te Kōkiringa Taumata New Zealand Planning Institute.[4]