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Your home of colour Resene’s palette of lilac, mauve and purple is the perfect backdrop for autumnal contemplation.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Milk jug in Resene Alaska; foliage in Resene Mozart; egg in Resene Memory Lane; notebook in Resene Dreamtime; pencil in Resene Harmony; background in Resene Whimsical.

Announcing the 2019 ďŹ nalists and category winners: Two spectacular Queenstown retreats Clever design, minimal budget in Wellington A sharp Great Barrier beach house Future city: Auckland’s best new apartments

Embracing architecture in

a new light

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DuluxÂŽ are proud sponsors of Home of the Year 2019.

For the latest in colour and design inspiration, explore the colour trends at dulux.co.nz/colourforecast

Dulux, Worth doing, worth Dulux and the Sheepdog device are registered trade marks of DuluxGroup (Australia) Pty Ltd. Due to limitations of the printing process, images may not represent the true colour. Always confirm your colour choice with Dulux colour swatches or sample pots.

Image from the Dulux Colour Forecast 2019 featuring Dulux Whakatane, Dulux West Plains, Dulux Pohutu Geyser and Dulux Deep Aqua.

Contents

70

86

Home of the Year 2019 70.

Rough Diamond With its striking diagrid roof and sense of fun, our Home of the Year 2019 is a truly Auckland house 86.

100

114

Magic Trick In Wellington, our best small home does more than overcome a difficult site – it makes it into something rather special indeed 100.

Ground Work Richard Naish designs a home near Arrowtown that seems to emerge from the spectacular mountain landscape 114.

Urban Renewal With three singular designs at Wynyard Central, Architectus shows us how good apartment living in Auckland can be 128.

Interior Motive A sophisticated retreat on Great Barrier Island by architecture + rethinks conventional bach living 142.

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Base Camp Vaughn McQuarrie draws on the bivouac tradition to design an enigmatic little house near Queenstown

Contents

Home of the Year 156.

Judges’ journey Insights from the judging panel’s 10-stop tour

160.

History never repeats 24 years of Home of the Year winners

Design 24.

38.

28.

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30.

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44.

Brick by brick A designer discusses the home she created for her young family

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Come together A community collaborates to merge established with new Chambers await A heritage building in Dunedin is now a smart new hotel Show ponies A glass-art studio is revitalised for a shopfront and exhibitions

Dark arts Shadowy light plays out across products new to market Good yarn Wool turns the tide for a new wave of sustainability Fresh finds Delightful design discoveries 46.

36.

Shorts Breakthrough glassware and contemporary art on show

Features

Filter

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171.

52.

172.

58.

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Shelf life How to put your best works on show

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Young talent time Striking simplicity and design purity by Ted Synnott

Destination Tokyo A designer takes on the dynamic city Going solo A photographer discovers a remote home worth travelling for The plausible rogue David Straight opens the door to John Scott’s celebrated designs

Kosmos at City Gallery Eva Rothschild shows for the first time in New Zealand In Conversation Join us for breakfast with architect Jack McKinney Screen time Good news: Resene Architecture & Design Film Festival returns 176.

Be my Guest Architecture lecturer Bill McKay on how immigration has improved our cities 178.

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My favourite building Home of the Year judge Nicola Herbst profiles a model of adaptive reuse in Auckland

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Photograph Jackie Meiring

Home of the Year You might have seen the recent headline on Stuff about our awards finalists: Home of the Year Finalists Not Polite. “Don’t expect architecture with good manners,” the story opened.

Cough. On behalf of the magazine, I should probably apologise to our winners and finalists for being a little glib in my comments – though the point was germane. If there’s a trend in New Zealand architecture I’d like to see less of right now, it’s politeness.

Politeness is okay, of course – and our winner, a concrete house by architect Jack McKinney in an Auckland heritage street – is pretty considerate of its Victorian neighbours.

All too often these days, architecture seems to have made politeness the point, retreating into detail as it does so. Maybe it’s the cost of building; maybe it’s regulation. But when that happens we all lose something – sometimes I just want to shout: where’s the bloody big idea?

Thankfully, Home of the Year 2019 features some really good big ideas. In February we – Paraguayan architect Gloria Cabral and our 2018 winners Lance and Nicola Herbst – set off around the country to view the 10 houses shortlisted for Home of the Year.

As you’ll see, the six finalists and winners we chose all have a clear idea at their heart – and brave owners who set about building them.

Our winner, for example, features a 56-tonne monopitch concrete roof laid in a diagrid pattern. It soars up to 4.3 metres, a floating piece of drama that seems to sit lightly on the chimney, a lovely big open-plan living area unfolding underneath it.

The idea is one thing: the execution another – and in this case, owner-builder Cameron Ireland has left all that concrete roughly finished, exactly as it came from the formwork. It’s gutsy and raw – and we loved being there. Ultimately, that’s what Home of the Year is all about.

— Simon Farrell-Green

FIND US ONLINE

homemagazine.co.nz @homenewzealand facebook.com/homenewzealand

As well as our Home of the Year, we announced five – five! – category winners at our awards night in Auckland in early April. Best Retreat went to Richard Naish of RTA Studio for a gutsy courtyard house near Arrowtown. Best Small Home went to Spacecraft Architects for a wonderful design in the shape of an X in Wellington. Best City Home went to our winner, the ‘Diagrid’ house by Jack McKinney and Best Interior – sponsored

by Dulux – went to architecture + for an intellectual house on Great Barrier Island. We were also delighted to give the Best Multi-Unit award to Architectus for Wynyard Central in Auckland. Finally, I’d like to extend a heartfelt thanks to our loyal sponsors Altherm Window Systems, who mark their 10th year supporting this award.

Bravo!

IM AG INATION INTO ME TAL

Contributors

Patrick Reynolds

Imogen Temm

The photographer and urbanissues activist shot our winning Home of the Year, p.70.

The freelance graphic designer travelled to Tokyo for coffee, culture and cuisine, p.50.

What did you make of our Home of the Year? I love the in-situ concrete, much rougher than has been the norm lately, and its counterpoint to the smoother surfaces used throughout, especially the steelclad hall. And certainly the drama of the slicing diagrid floating above the entire main floor. I also love the way the house orients to the street, almost the perfect balance of public/private.

What most delighted you about Tokyo? This was my first trip to Japan. Although I tried to take few preconceptions with me, I was hoping for a Blade Runner-esque ‘near future’ feeling. To my delight, this came in the form of Metabolist structures by the likes of Kisho Kurokawa and Kenzō Tange.

What are you working on at the moment? I’ve just released the first of a suite of four architectural guide books to New Zealand cities in collaboration with John Walsh.

They’re pocket-sized walking guides to our urban architectural heritage. I’m loving shooting these gems from all eras.

As a public transport and urbandesign advocate, what’s top of mind in that regard? So much!

Auckland is undergoing once-ina-generation changes, keeping me busy trying to nudge things towards even better outcomes.

Especially exciting now is Access For Everyone, the plan to unwind city-centre streets from the 1960s motorway offramp priority structure we have now. This includes the electrification of all service and delivery vehicles, slower vehicle speeds, the extension of shared streets, pedestrian-only spaces and more trees. With many changes, I firmly believe Auckland can be the best small city in the world.

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What drew you to the places you visited? I based much of my trip around galleries, architecture and food. To make the most of my new environment, I tried to spend downtime in public places, rather than my accommodation. After working for a specialty coffeeroasting company in Melbourne, my interest in the third-wave coffee scene solidified and the baristas I spoke to in Tokyo recommended great places.

What’s the next destination on your itinerary and why? Hopefully the next big trip will be to Los Angeles as, luckily, my partner Alex and I have accommodation there.

While there I’d love to see Eames Case Study House #8.

What creative projects are you working on? Alex is about to start renovating her 1970s brick-and-tile unit. It’s exciting to have a project we can funnel our creative energy into that’s personal. It also draws on much of the work we’ve done in our professional lives, as we’ve both worked at various home publications over the years.

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DAW S O N & C O .

Editor Simon Farrell-Green Deputy Editor Jo Bates Art Director Arch MacDonnell Inhouse Design Senior Designer/Stylist Sara Black Designer Alex Turner Inhouse Design

On the cover— Home of the Year 2019, a house in Grey Lynn, Auckland, designed by Jack McKinney. Pictured: Cameron Ireland and Rachael Newnham with their children Katie, Jack (in the hall) and Elliot, along with Honey the dog. Photography by Patrick Reynolds; art direction by Arch MacDonnell and Alex Turner.

Correction— In our February/ March 2019 issue, we incorrectly attributed the design of ‘Rainbow Machine’ to Sarosh Mulla and Aaron Paterson of Pac Studio.

In fact it was a collaboration between Patrick Loo, Sarosh Mulla and Shahriar AsdollahZadeh. The error is regretted.

Head of Digital Michael Fuyala Digital Editor Lakshmi Krishnasamy Digital Producers Bea Taylor Olivia Day Video Editor Lana Byrne Editorial Office Bauer Media Group Shed 12, City Works Depot 90 Wellesley Street Auckland, New Zealand homenewzealand@ bauermedia.co.nz +64 9 308 2700

Contributors Jo Clements Greg Dixon Jenny Farrell Sjoerd Langeveld Robert Leonard Douglas Lloyd Jenkins Claire McCall Bill McKay Matt Philp Alex Scott Imogen Temm Tanya Wong Jiho Yun Photographers Simon Devitt Mary Gaudin Jackie Meiring Toaki Okano Patrick Reynolds Andy Spain David Straight Postal address HOME New Zealand Bauer Media Group Private Bag 92512 Wellesley Street Auckland 1141 New Zealand

Chief Executive Officer Paul Dykzeul

Production Co-ordinator Lorne Kay

Managing Director Brendon Hill

Advertising Sydney Rachel McLean rmclean@bauermedia.co.nz +64 9 308 2760

General Manager – Publishing and Insights Tanya Walshe Editorial Director Shelley Ferguson Commercial Director Kaylene Hurley Group Sales Director Premium Lifestyle Titles Stuart Dick Commercial Brand Manager Alice Harwood aharwood@bauermedia.co.nz Assistant Commercial Brand Manager Amelia Murray amurray@bauermedia.co.nz Advertising Account Manager Nicola Saunders nsaunders@bauermedia.co.nz +64 9 366 5345 Advertising Co-ordinator Alexandra Cuadros acuadros@bauermedia.co.nz Classified Advertising Kim Chapman classifieds@xtra.co.nz +64 7 578 3646 Marketing & Circulation Manager Martine Skinner Brand & Communications Manager Katie Ward

Printer Webstar Distributor Gordon & Gotch

HOME is subject to copyright in its entirety and the contents may not be reproduced in any form, either in whole or in part, without written permission of the publisher. All rights reserved in material accepted for publication, unless initially specified otherwise. All letters and other material forwarded to the magazine will be assumed intended for publication unless clearly labeled “not for publication”. We welcome submissions of homes that architects or owners would like to be considered for publication.

Opinions expressed in HOME New Zealand are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of Bauer Media Group. No responsibility is accepted for unsolicited material. ABC average net circulation, April 17 – March 18: 12,026 copies. ISSN 1178-4148.

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Project Urbanism Hospitality Retail Five of the Best One to Watch The Set-Up Conscious Consumption Fresh Finds Shorts

Design

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D:01 PROJECT

Brick by brick

A designer creates a fortresslike home in Birkenhead Point, Auckland, for her young family.

Sophie Wylie, Artifact— “I live here with my husband and our three children – a five year old, four year old and two-and-a-half year old. The kids love to play outside so it was interesting having a really urban home for them – the courtyard works well, with enough surface area for them to play. We also have parks around us, which makes a difference. The kids colonise the sunken living room as their snug and playroom.

It’s quite a big house, with four bedrooms on a small plot of land. There’s a neighbouring commercial building, two houses behind us, and a heritage overlay, so it was a challenge to work with. It’s a constrained site with an efficient build in the sense that it has been extruded into a large, two-storey, walled north-eastern courtyard house. The 260-square-metre floorplan includes the garage, and the 400-square-metre site includes the driveway on a shared lot.

The site originally had a house on it that was built in 1910. It hadn’t been inhabited for 50 years, was too far gone, and had to be demolished. It had a steep roof pitch, as does ours. When we carried out the survey, we found that the brick stables – now offices that belong to the Masonic building next door – were over our boundary. We’ve kinked the plan to allow for that and incorporated it into our courtyard, which we love.

We’ve heard that the old house was the Hellabys’ [of Hellaby butchers] holiday home and they’d come over from town.

We had to have an archaeologist onsite when the house was demolished and we found a brick well, which was quite beautiful, but there was nothing we could do with it.

We had wanted to work in brick for a while. Amazing things are done in Australia with brick screening, but we are challenged with earthquake restrictions here. We needed to get sun into the house, while still maintaining privacy. We’ve used 40,000 Spanish bricks; a standard length with a slightly narrow height – more of a 70s style. You wonder if people notice the size difference – I think they do. Some people hate brick and that’s fine.

Opposite— The walled courtyard from the street, with separate residences at the rear of the property.

Left— John the family cat on the stairs. A ‘Smart’ chair by Estudio Andreu for Andreu World from UFL at the custom dining table and built-in oak bench seat by Sophie Wylie of Artifact.

Below— The oak room divider to the left of the front door creates a subtle division to the living area. Ceramics

by Peter Collis and from An Astute Assembly line the shelves.

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Left— Goldie in the sunken lounge that the kids treat as their snug and playroom. ‘Icelandic Glaciers’ by Marzena Skubatz hang on the wall.

Right— Granite wraps the island and serves as a splashback. The ‘Lottus’ swivel stools by Lievore Altherr Molina for Enea are from UFL. Below— John stretches in front of the neighbouring brick building that’s been incorporated into the courtyard plan.

We are surrounded by walls, so it’s different to a typical New Zealand home, and I enjoy that difference. It was designed for our family, so we spent a lot of time considering the plan. The home has two slightly offset gables, which confuses people – they think it’s two homes.

The stairwell links the two parts of the house; there’s living downstairs and two separate wings upstairs, with the main bedroom and an office as the adult wing, and the kids’ rooms – which are all one size – and a bathroom.

It’s relatively open plan. We didn’t want to lose space by having hallways – we didn’t have that luxury. As you enter, there’s a screen to the right, which provides a little bit of privacy to the living room and formalises some definition, then you’re into the dining room. My father and I made the dining table together and it has a long bench seat that the kids clamber over. It’s a space we really gather around.

The kitchen is tucked in behind – although it’s a great space, I didn’t want to walk in and see the kitchen because we are a family that cooks. The entrance aligns with the view to the snug so you are drawn into the dining and out to the courtyard.

It functions really well as a family home.”

Photography David Straight

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Make it yours !

USM brings simplicity to your life: clear structures, sustainable design – creating a pure space.

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D:02 URBANISM

Come together A vibrant community inspires the merging of old and new.

Architects Katherine Skipper and Daniel Thompson of Warren & Mahoney found themselves deeply engaged with local life when restoring and designing an addition to the Waihinga Martinborough Community Centre.

What was the goal of the project?

Katherine Skipper— The goal was to extend the life of the existing spaces and update the facility to meet the needs of the community, which was highly engaged in this project through fundraising and feedback. It was hugely important for us to reinvigorate this much-loved building in a way that respects its purpose and history.

Daniel Thompson— The project maximises the original building’s functionality by linking it to a new modern extension and adding space for support services. The final stage is the redevelopment of the park in front of the building, which joins the town hall to the square. This will help position the complex as a new focal centre for Martinborough.

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How did you respect the original while adding something contemporary?

KS— We took care to retain heritage elements, utilising our wider practice experience with other major heritage projects like the Christchurch Town Hall and Arts Centre.

DT— The contemporary elements are of this time, rather than trying to mimic the original building. New additions pick up on the scale of key elements and heights throughout the original building.

We introduced some features that were deliberately designed to showcase where the new meets the old, for example the glazed link between the buildings.

Where did you start and what was your inspiration? KS— Before responding to the design brief, we underwent a process of defining the local identity and community needs. The overall inspiration came from the unique landscape of Wairarapa, the historic nature of the town founders, and the vibrant local community.

How do the two buildings function now?

KS— They work together to provide an enlivened cultural space where multiple community groups can come together and collaborate under one roof. The old building retains its original functions, while being strengthened and brought up to current standard, unlocking its potential as a town hall. It includes a central auditorium for theatre performance, community and meeting rooms, wedding celebrations, and a kitchen alongside the original tearoom.

DT— The original foyer was re-planned for use as a gathering space before guests enter the auditorium. The new open-plan building encompasses iSite, wine library, library, cafe, Plunket, children’s area, public meeting rooms and facilities. The large canopy shades the outdoor space adjacent to Plunket. It’s an interactive and accessible area for community use, even when the centre is closed. The redevelopment of the park is the final step, for which the community is fundraising.

Above— Multiple community facilities mingle under a ceiling of exposed beams.

Right— The new library and cafe.

Left— While the original building was lovingly restored, the addition was conceived as a modern, slatted-timber lean-to.

What’s been your favourite part of the process? KS— Finding an authentic design solution which was deeply rooted in the needs and identity of the local community. When it opened, people’s reactions made us appreciate that we’d taken the right path.

DT— The project team learned how much of a deeply personal experience working closely with the community can be. At the public opening, each member of the team independently organised to bring their family along, which was a sign of how personally attached we’d become to the outcome.

Waihinga Martinborough Community Centre Texas Street, Martinborough Photography Andy Spain

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Left— The hotel’s signage in backlit brass is by Luke Johnston at BrandAid. Right— Breakfast is served in ‘The Loft’, a space carved out of an odd 60s addition to the building. The ‘Only U’ wall lights are by Volker Haug.

The dining tables by NW Studio are made by Harrows. The brass stem vases are by NW Studio.

Below— The ‘Caged’ wall light and ‘Heavy Metal’ pendant in the 60-square-metre ‘Pad’ are

by Buster + Punch. The dining table and key shelf

by NW Studio are made

by Metalworks Otago.

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D:03 NEW OPENING

Chamber awaits Nikki Wilson of NW Studio works relevant rhythm into a heritage Dunedin building.

What was the design brief from the client? The developers have done a lot of work in Dunedin over the years and know and love the city and its buildings.

Their brief was to convert the building into a hotel which would be attractive for guests staying a night or two, but with the capacity for longer stays. They wanted something that would attract the most interesting and interested visitors – a place for forward thinkers, curious people. We all agreed it was to be an inner-city hideaway – a place for the conscious traveller to have an authentic Dunedin experience.

Above— The NW Studiodesigned headboards are made by Otago Furniture.

The artwork above is by Nicole Freeman. The ‘Enna’ wall light is by Astro Lighting.

Below— The apartmentstyle ‘Lookout’ rooms each take up a corner of the building. The ‘Flynn’ sofa is by David Shaw and wool rug by Nodi. The ‘Lena’ dining chairs and table by NW Studio are both made by Harrows.

Tell us about your design approach in this heritage-industrial building. The Category 2 heritage-listed building was built in 1910 by engineers and importers Chambers & Sons – hence the name – as their offices and warehouse. Once we had stripped out the rabbit warren of partition walls, we fell in love with the building’s rhythm and materials. The structural grid allowed us to give at least one full set of phenomenally high windows to each room. They belt light in and, depending on the room, varying city views. We were more than happy to let these windows have the loudest voice. The building is full of imperfections and anomalies and we decided to honour that, to not see the effects of age as defects, but to layer them up with a new story.

You’ve left parts of the building unadorned – such as the stairway wall that’s partially exposed brick and partially rendered. What other features have been preserved? We left all brick walls exposed; some were partially rendered – the render having fallen off over time. The steel columns have splayed footings, which we’ve left exposed where possible. The windows were partially covered by a suspended ceiling in the previous office fitout and when we uncovered these in their entirety, it was a no-brainer to leave them as is. The street entrance had an unusual natural stone-tiled floor, so we chipped off the plaster, scrubbed off years of stains, and it looks beautiful. We made sure that all new architectural or interior elements served to either contrast and highlight the building’s original features, or quietly support and give them a new context in which to continue their life.

What do you enjoy most about the building? Its no-nonsense, muscular street presence and rhythm. We hope the interior is a gentle opposition to the exterior gruffness and a shoulder-to-shoulder stroll with its rhythm.

You’ve used New Zealand wool products, including carpet and blankets. What other local products have you used?

The tactile qualities of materials were important – they had to feel good, so we’ve also used New Zealand linen, and open-weave hemp curtains. We’ve worked with local artists, craftspeople, trades and suppliers, all of whom were immensely supportive of the project.

Most of the furniture is from New Zealand manufacturers.

The Chamberson Hotel 77 Stuart St, Dunedin thechamberson.co.nz Photography Simon Devitt

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D:04 RETAIL

Show pony

A rich artistic history lives on in Deadly Ponies’ new-old space.

Rather than make a modern shopfront out of a building that had been changed relentlessly over the years, the new Deadly Ponies store is more itself than it has been in decades. “The place had been changed so much over the years, just messed around with every time it was touched,” says Deadly Ponies managing director Steve Boyd, of the building in Ponsonby, Auckland.

The building – which started life as a sailors’ boarding house in the mid-19th century, with a predictable level of notoriety – has had various lives. It was most recently home to Sunbeam Glass Studios, owned by glass artist Gary Nash.

In the 1980s, Nash added a vast stables-like building out the back for his workshop, and converted the original building as a gallery for his and others’ work. Deadly Ponies, the luxury leathergoods brand, moved in four years ago, and eventually bought the entire site.

“I think Gary had always envisaged that for us,” says creative director Liam Bowden.

“He saw what we did, and the link to art and craft. He wanted it to continue in that vein rather than have a developer turn it into apartments.”

The brand started work on the rear building, turning it into The Glassworks, a space designed for exhibitions and events (HOME held its Design Awards there last year) – with soaring white ceilings and nods to its industrial heritage.

“We run it almost like a not-for-profit,” says Bowden, of the wonderfully idiosyncratic space. “We’d like people to come in who want to run an exhibition or theatre shows – things that are much more community driven.”

Earlier this year, they refitted the store to a design by Katie Lockhart. The brief?

“Home,” says Boyd simply. Says Bowden: “That’s why we kept the fireplace and have elements that are warm and home-like – timber and curtains and so on.”

These pages— Katie Lockhart designed the interiors. Oak floors and soft white walls are the backdrop for a space that’s ‘home’ for the Deadly Ponies brand.

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The walls are a soft white, the floors are oak and so are the built-in shelves, on which you’ll find art and ceramics along with leather goods and accessories.

Lockhart also sourced antique Japanese display cases from Kyoto, which have a handmade, aged quality to them.

“Previously, we’d placed a lot of emphasis on colour,” says Bowden. “This time it’s more about natural materials, warmth and a familiarity.”

In between the two buildings is a courtyard designed by Lockhart’s brother Jared – an oasis of natives mixed with annuals, among raw poured-concrete benches. It brings a sense of calm to a rather special corner of Ponsonby.

“That’s where we see the value for the brand,” says Bowden. “Adding to the life of the site is really important for us.”

Deadly Ponies & The Glassworks 70 Mackelvie St, Grey Lynn, Auckland deadlyponies.com, theglassworks.co.nz Photography David Straight

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Above— The historic Glassworks contains gallery-like spaces for events and exhibitions.

Left and below— Jared Lockhart designed the courtyard, planting it with natives and annuals.

FROM DENMARK. TO THE WORLD.

A M S TE RDA M SO FA DA N I S H D E S I G N S I N C E 19 5 2 | B O C O N C EP T.C O M AU C K L A N D | W E L L I N GTO N | C H R I STC H U R C H

D:05 FIVE OF THE BEST

Shelf life

There are many ways to store and display – here are five of the finest.

Styling Sara Black Assistant Jiho Yun Photography Toaki Okano Clockwise from right— ‘Pivot’ shelves by Lex Pott for HAY, from $152 each from Cult, cultdesign.co.nz; ‘Randomissimo’ shelving

by Neuland Industriedesign for MDF Italia, $535 from Matisse, matisse.co.nz; ‘Pero’ tall shelving unit by Matthew Hilton for Ercol, $3795 from Good Form, goodform. co.nz, with ‘Grid’ washi tape by Classiky, $10 from Everyday Needs, everyday-needs.com; ‘Corniche’ shelving by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec for Vitra, from $121 each from Matisse, matisse.co.nz, with Retractable ballpoint pen by Delfonics, $15 from Everyday Needs, everyday-needs.com; ‘Zoll D’ bookcase by Lukas Buol and Marco Zünd for Nils Holger Moormann, POA from Katalog, katalog.co.nz, with ‘Lawn’ lounge hat by Companion x EDN, $110 from Everyday Needs, everyday-needs.com, and ‘Bird’ by Kristian Vedel for Architectmade, $110 from Good Form, goodform. co.nz. Background in ‘Primo Premium’ vinyl in Light Pure Grey by Tarkett, POA from Jacobsen Creative Services, jacobsens.co.nz.

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D:06 ONE TO WATCH

Ted Synnott

Purity of form shapes this young designer’s thinking.

In 50 words or less, tell us what you do and why you do it. I aim to create original objects and spaces that are deceptively simple. I focus on fundamental forms that are free of superfluous detail in the hope that they will have permanence. I want to make everyday objects that are beautiful to the eye and enjoyable to use.

Tell us a bit about your background, where you grew up, studied and your career path. I grew up in a creative environment on a farm south of Auckland.

My aunty across the paddock taught me to paint and draw when I was young and I made clothing and printed t-shirts throughout my school years. I was always visually critiquing everything I saw, fascinated by things I liked and mentally refining things I didn’t; doing something creative for a career seemed logical. I’d planned on studying architecture but as I got older, design seemed more pragmatic and accessible. I spent a year studying furniture making in Nelson, which taught me what I needed to bring my ideas to fruition. I’ve spent most of the last year developing pieces of furniture, while working to pay the bills.

What are you currently working on? The first orders for my current work as well as designing new work that includes a series of nesting ceramic dishes that stack efficiently, an articulating table lamp and a coffee table.

I’m also helping Martino Gamper prepare for his Auckland show.

There’s a seamlessness and purity to your work. Which designers do you look to and why? I follow a number of designers whose work evokes similar feelings. I’m drawn to work that exudes a sense of calm because that’s the quality I want in anything I use or own. I’m a big admirer of Makr’s Jason Gregory, he works across a range of disciplines while maintaining a very consistent look and feel; John Pawson for his simplicity and clarity; Stefan Diez for challenging product archetypes and creating new typologies. There are too many to name but I also look to the work of Cecilie Manz, Fala Atelier, Tom Chung and the Bouroullecs.

Tell us about your work space. I design from home and prototype new pieces in my uncle’s workshop in Clevedon. It’s a large, light-filled space with a high stud and bare concrete floors. He has a lot of metal-working machinery – luckily, I didn’t have to buy too many things for it to be a functioning space.

Ted Synnott tedsynnott.com Photography James Magee

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Above— Auckland-based designer Ted Synnott.

Right— Five pieces of oak merge seamlessly and elegantly to form ‘Chair Frame’.

Below— ‘Musical Square’ is a combination of three tessellated pieces. Its form is open to interpretations of use, from a side table to seat.

D:07 THE SET-UP

Dark arts

Magic happens when light is allowed to lead the way.

Styling Sara Black Assistant Jiho Yun Photography Toaki Okano

Clockwise from left— ‘Cranium’ by Meighan Ellis, $1950 from Sanderson, sanderson.co.nz; ‘Alanda 18’ coffee table (upended)

by Paolo Piva for B&B Italia, $3900 from Matisse, matisse.co.nz; ‘Stratum II’ by Meighan Ellis, $1950 from Sanderson, sanderson.co.nz; ‘Sen’ brass candle stick by Takuya Nishimoto, $180 from An Astute Assembly, aaaselect.co; ostrich egg, stylist’s own; ‘Arnoldino’ stools by Martino Gamper, $190 each from Everyday Needs, everyday-needs. com; ‘Mandarinas’ cushion

by Elena Castaño-López for Sancal, $215 from UFL, ufl.co.nz. Wall and floor in Resene ‘Parsley’.

Clockwise from right— ‘Silica’ by Meighan Ellis, $1950 from Sanderson, sanderson.co.nz; ‘Pond, Western Waterways’ by Kate van der Drift, $4950 from Sanderson, sanderson.co.nz; ostrich egg, stylist’s own; ‘Squiggle’ brass incense holder by Subtle Bodies, $60 from Everyday Needs, everyday-needs.com, with ‘Calm’ ritual incense by Bodha, $28 from Bodha, bodha.com; ‘Kashmir’ chair by Simon James for Resident, POA from Simon James Design, simonjamesdesign.com, with ‘Bang!’ cushion by Elena Castaño-López for Sancal, $313 from UFL, ufl.co.nz, and ‘Saarinen’ side table in Verdi Alpi marble

by Eero Saarinen for Knoll, $3670 from Studio Italia, studioitalia.co.nz. Wall and floor in Resene ‘Parsley’.

KITCHEN BATHROOM BEDROOM HANDLES.

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D:08 CONSCIOUS CONSUMPTION

Good yarn

A breakthrough discovery by a Tauranga boardmaker could reshape the surf industry.

Not since the original timber clunkers of the early days have surfboards genuinely aligned with a surfer’s ethos of connecting with nature. Riding glass filaments and petroleum-based polyurethane slapped with a cocktail of toxic compounds is quite the disconnect. But a breakthrough discovery by Tauranga-based board maker Paul Barron has the potential to reshape the surf industry, as well as impact others.

After years of testing and refining, Barron’s wool-composite technology is replacing fibreglass and foam traditionally used in board making. His collaboration with New Zealand Merino and Californiabased Firewire Surfboards – co-owned by world-champion surfer and environmental activist Kelly Slater – has spawned the Woolight board, which is due for release in New Zealand in May. “We all know we ride a product that harms the environment and wool boards are a step in the right direction, as far as biodegradable and renewable material is concerned,” says Barron.

Other water sports are a natural evolution for the wool technology. Barron is currently working on prototypes for a stand-up paddle board and snowboard, and wider potential is being explored for other industries, including construction.

Hadeligh Smith, marketing development manager of New Zealand Merino, a Christchurch-based wool marketer and innovator, says the potential for the New Zealand industry is significant. “We’re really excited about the broad potential and we’ve completed prototypes on a number of products, including sustainable materials for homes, a wool replacement for guttering and roofing material, which is great for rust protection and avoiding the use of more plastic, as well as some stools and kitchen bench options. There are also opportunities to replace shower and bench tops with sustainable materials,” says Smith, who is seeking partnerships

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with building companies to develop a range of sustainable materials.

Back in the waves, the new Woolight board has had to prove its worth in the billion-dollar surf industry. As for performance, Barron says the first thing you notice is the board’s flex, and then its get up and go. The accomplished surfer hopes that other surfboard companies will pick up the technology.

Barron Woolight boards are available through Barron Surfboards and Firewire will release boards here in May, with prices ranging from $980.

Woolight barronsurfboards.co.nz firewiresurfboards.com

Above— Woolight surfboards use a woolcomposite technology that replaces fibreglass.

CONTEMPORARY RUGS OF DISTINCTION

ARP T

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SHOWROOMS: 70 Stanley St, Parnell 1010 | Auckland Mainland Design Centre - 323 Madras St 8013 | Christchurch CONTACT: 09 377 3068 | 0800 767 847 | info@sourcemondial.co.nz

D:09 PRODUCTS

Fresh finds Design discoveries to delight and inspire.

1— ‘Virginia’ throw by Wallace Sewell, $1100 from Bob & Friends, bobandfriends.co.nz.

2— ‘Curve’ highboard by PBJ Designhouse, from $2925 from Design Denmark, designdenmark.co.nz.

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3— ‘Courone’ and ‘Limonier’ saucers by John Derian for Astier de Villatte, $178 each from Tessuti, tessuti.co.nz.

4— ‘Ploff’ ottoman by Antonino Sciortino for La Cividina, $3110 each from UFL, ufl.co.nz.

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5— ‘Wood’ tray by Hasami Porcelain, $131 from Simon James Design, simonjamesdesign.com.

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6— ‘Haller’ unit by Paul Schärer and Fritz Haller for USM, $4625 from ECC, ecc.co.nz.

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D:10 EYEWEAR

Look sharp

I Love Ugly and Bailey Nelson collaborate on a range of specs.

I Love Ugly first ventured into eyewear a few years back, but quickly discovered it’s a finicky thing to manufacture. This time around, they’ve wisely partnered with Australian optometrist chain Bailey Nelson, which designs and makes all its own glasses. The ILUxBN range is design driven and tightly edited – there are just three designs with few variants each, such as the ‘Enzo’ (left), a super-light, easy-towear titanium frame and the ‘Rocco’, a mad 1990s-inspired design. From $175 to $285, they are remarkably well priced.

I Love Ugly x Bailey Nelson iloveugly.com baileynelson.co.nz

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Specify with confidence

Top quality European-made hardware for every level of project.

Specify Blum through Masterspec for residential and commercial cabinetry.

www.blum.com

D:11 EPICURE

One for all

Jancis Robinson MW collaborates to produce one glass for all wine.

Clear out your cupboards – you may never need another wine glass. It turns out you only need one glass to drink everything, including Champagne. The legendary British wine writer Jancis Robinson and product designer Richard Brendon have developed a wine glass that can honour any wine you like, along with a range of decanters and a water glass. Hand blown in Slovenia with the slimmest of edges, the glass is wide enough for red and generous to whites. And they’re designed to go in the dishwasher. We’ve tried ‘em and can confirm: 1998 Te Mata Coleraine works as well as a 2017 chardonnay. ateliernash.co.nz

D:12 ART

Fair call

Auckland Art Fair 2019 hosts work from more than 40 galleries.

From Sydney to Santiago and Hobart to Hastings, Auckland Art Fair draws on a wealth of emerging and established talent that will be on show for five days at The Cloud, on Auckland’s waterfront.

A fixture of the contemporary art event is the Projects Programme, a platform for largely unrepresented emerging talent to exhibit their work. This year’s title for the programme is ‘Whanaungatanga’, which loosely means kinship.

Headed by Francis McWhannell, the arts writer and curator invited last year’s alumni of nine artists and one curator to nominate this year’s talent.

As well as new names to discover, exhibiting established artists include Fiona Pardington Gretchen Albrecht, Lisa Reihana, John Reynolds, Terry Stringer and Heather Straka.

A broader look at the industry will be discussed in ‘Future of Art’, a series of talks by Christina Barton, director of Wellington’s Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi. artfair.co.nz Auckland Art Fair, 1-5 May The Cloud, 89 Quay St, Auckland

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Photography Alamy; Imogen Temm; Kenta Hasegawa; Josh Griggs; Flickr

D:11 DESTINATION

Into the fold

Designer Imogen Temm feeds the creative spirit in Tokyo.

Roam Roam is an international co-living and co-working community, an ambitiously Utopian concept that works thanks to the balance of privacy and community.

The artfully executed Tokyo outpost by designer Nicholas Lee draws inspiration from remote villages in Japan’s Nagano countryside and North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Found objects are collected in the communal areas; pages from vintage books cover the walls in the ‘family’ kitchen. In stark contrast, the upstairs bedrooms are stripped back to the essentials, elegantly equipped with a bed, mirror, rug and bonsai. roam.co

21_21 Design Sight Less than 100 metres from Roam is Hinokicho Park, its tranquil gardens dotted with sculptures, the remarkable 21_21 Design Sight gallery at its edge.

The result of discussions between fashion designer Issey Miyake, architectural designer Tadao Ando and sculptor Isamu Noguchi, the gallery opened in 2007. The unique steel-plate roof reads as a single piece of folded metal: rising dramatically from the park’s manicured grounds, it could be likened to an origami fold. The remaining 80 percent of the gallery’s volume is hidden underground.

2121designsight.jp

Mihoncho Honten Takeo Paper Store This temple to paper features tables of meticulously organised stock samples in a coded gradient that can be viewed and touched. In this gallery-like space, you’ll find the paper you want to purchase in corresponding numbered drawers that line the wall. Upstairs is a gallery that displays exemplary uses of Takeo paper and printing, and the Misuzudo Bindery. takeo.co.jp

Tsutaya Books Interlocking T-shapes adorn the façade of T-site, which houses Tsutaya Books, in the upmarket shopping district of Daikanyama.

Designed by Klein Dytham Architecture, the ‘T’ in the Tsutaya logo was the catalyst in creating an iconic building that didn’t have to rely on signage to be identified.

Tsutaya stocks an unparalleled selection of design, architecture, fashion and travel books, magazines and printed ephemera. real.tsite.jp/daikanyama/english

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Koffee Mameya Housed in a small, inviting timber cube, designed by Yosuke Hayashi of 14sd, Koffee Mameya’s interior comprises smooth, grey-mortared walls and floors.

The austerity is offset by a wood-lined dispensary and a wall stacked with cotton bags of beans from all over the world, arranged from light beige to deep brown to signify the roast. At the counter, an expert will ask how you brew your coffee at home and the flavour profiles you enjoy.

You can then purchase an expertly crafted brew or a bag of beans that comes with a meticulously prepared brew method including coarseness of grind, water-tobean ratio and extraction time. Similar to Hayashi’s juxtaposition of cold and warm materials, the slightly intimidating ordering process is quickly diffused by the passion of staff to share their knowledge. koffee-mameya.com

Coffee Supreme For the homesick, Coffee Supreme in Shibuya serves familiar comforts. Founded in Wellington in 1993, the brand and its design identity transitions seamlessly to Tokyo – the red logo centred on a cream Hasami Porcelain mug is reminiscent of the Japanese flag. Spatial designer Shingo Abe created this Shibuya shop, which serves Antipodean coffee culture in a localised way.

Previous page— The folded steel rooftop of 21_21 Design Sight is reminiscent of origami.

Above left— Koffee Mameya offers a highly curated coffee experience.

Above right— A welcome kit at Roam.

Left— Butagumi chefs prepare Tonkatsu that’s worth lining up for.

coffeesupreme.com/tokyo

Commune 2nd As ambitious as Roam in its commitment to creating a progressive community, this open-air food and drink market includes a branch of the Freedom University, an organisation advocating education for all.

Gastronomy highlights include Chikiyu Udon, serving authentic Kagawa udon for only 390 yen (NZ$5); Beer Brain has a rotation of four craft beers on tap; and there’s Shozo for drip coffee and pastries. commune2nd.com

Butagumi Tonkatsu Tokyo’s best tonkatsu is served at this peculiar yellow house with a crescent moon window. After its listing as one of Monocle’s best global restaurants in 2016, Butagumi has exploded in popularity and opened in a few locations, but a visit to the original eatery in Nishiazabu Minato is worth lining up for. butagumi.com/nishiazabu

Ichiran Roppongi Tucked away off the busy streets of Roppongi lies the introvert’s ideal eatery.

Ordering and payment take place at a ticket-dispensing machine, while preferences for an ideal bowl of ramen are traded in silence. A red noren (curtain) and wood panels block your view of other diners. Tea is free on tap and extra noodles or broth are available through a non-verbal request, allowing your moment of solitude to stretch as long as it needs to. ichiran.com

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Above left— A taste of New Zealand at Coffee Supreme in Shibuya.

Above right— Inside 21_21 Design Sight.

Left— Modern art at Hinokicho Park.

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1. This entrance is mirrored with a twin on the other side; a folly, leaving visitors with a choice.

2. Essentially a platform on a pedestal, the house hovers over the landscape and into the trees.

The concrete has aged in a way that mirrors the honeyed grass of late autumn. 3. Rain falls in the swimming pool that fills the centre of the remote holiday home.

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Going solo In remote Spain, Mary Gaudin discovers architecture that’s worth travelling for.

Text and photography Mary Gaudin

Chilean architects Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen’s practice is intellectual and rigorous, emotional and playful in equal measures. Through their practice, Pezo von Ellrichshausen, they have an almost taxonomic approach to architecture. They repeat forms with the idea that, at least conceptually, they’re producing nothing new. In this way, their projects are connected; part of a progression. They rethink aspects of one project in the next – referencing previous work, but without pastiche. In a few residential designs, they’ve explored the notion of a central void: leaving void as void, filling it with a staircase, leaving it open to the elements. At Solo Pezo in Cretas, north-east Spain, they’ve again explored the theme. This time the void is filled with a square pool in the centre of a tiled courtyard.

Solo Pezo is the first in the Solo Houses series of architecturally designed holiday homes, an ambitious

project by French property developer Christian Bourdais and cultural events organiser Eva Albarran.

“Our idea for the Solo Houses was to work with architects as you would work with artists when commissioning large-scale installations, to give them a maximum of artistic freedom,” says Bourdais.

Only two of the houses have been built – Solo Pezo in 2013 and Solo Office, by Belgium architects Office: Kersten Geers David Van Severen, in 2014.

Solo Pezo is on a 100-hectare site in Aragon, close to the border of Catalonia, on a plateau overlooking the Els Ports nature reserve. Conscious of the isolated setting, the architects see Solo Pezo as an end point to a long journey. Von Ellrichshausen describes the 100-step ascent to the building as an “almost perverse staircase”. They’ve prolonged and heightened the arrival. Only nearing the end of the climb do you glimpse the building.

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At the top you’re faced with entering the building via one of two identical staircases. It’s a playful touch that’s mirrored in symmetry and form throughout the house.

After making your choice, you enter the monastic concrete interior illuminated by turquoise light from two openings in the pool. Again, you can choose to go left or right.

Again, the outcome is the same.

A step up, you move around the pool to the opposite side and you’re faced with a beautiful concrete staircase. The element of surprise is a thrill as you leave the darkness and enter into the light above. Again, you play the game of which door to try; which room to enter. Each of the four rooms is identical in volume: two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room connected at their corners by courtyards.

Essentially an elevated rotunda on a podium, it’s a house on top of the trees. When I visited at the end of a very hot summer, the grass had dried to a honey tone, contrasting with green pine trees. The concrete exterior, too, had taken on a honeyed hue. The narrow black metal that forms railings at the entrance also wraps around the house, dissecting large windows that completely retract to open up the rooms. The timber used to form the concrete walls appears elsewhere as a mirroring device – as ceiling panels, for example; a softening touch.

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The weather was due to break the day after my arrival.

Although I wanted to shoot in the sunshine, I was curious to see how the house would feel in the rain. The next morning, after a brief glimpse of the sun rising over the hills, the weather closed in and proceeded to pour for the rest of my stay. It reminded me of holidays on New Zealand’s West Coast, when it rained so hard that venturing outside was all but impossible. It became clear how very well the place has been designed for summer, the way it completely opens up to the outside; the central courtyard to the elements. Watching the rain fall into the pool and observing the acoustics of the courtyard were a highlight, reminding me of a line from a favourite poem

by Hone Tuwhare: “I can hear you making small holes in the silence, rain.”

Solo Pezo is solar-powered and off-grid. At night there is no sound. I had come on my own; the first time since living in Europe that I could remember being so isolated.

Pezo and von Ellrichshausen talk of neutrality being important in their architecture. They see this concept as strongly connected to the way people experience places with a certain sense of familiarity. As Pezo says, “You feel comfortable because it feels as if the house has been there forever.”

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4. One of the bedrooms in the evening light. All of the exterior windows are sliding, allowing for air to flow through the house. 5. The view across the kitchen table in the morning light 6. ‘J16’ chair and stool by Hans J Wegner for FDB Mobler in the main room. 7. The oversized mirrored door into the bathroom. Reusing the timber scaffolding in the concrete casting as interior walls is a signature Pezo von Ellrichshausen move.

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1. The Rogers House was built in the middle of the 70s, an important decade of architecture for John Scott.

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The plausible rogue A new book on John Scott by David Straight celebrates the life and work of one of New Zealand’s most important architects – this extract focuses on the 1970s, in which he built three key houses.

Text Douglas Lloyd Jenkins Photography David Straight

The 1970s were an important decade for John Scott, a time when he produced many of the mid-career works on which his architectural reputation now rests. He began the decade with a recognised masterpiece in the form of the Martin House (1969-70). The Rogers House (1975), a modest house built by its owner, came in the middle of the decade, and the Arrowsmith House (1978-80), brought the decade to a close.

Each of these houses, and the experience of building them, was very different, reflecting the cultural and economic changes that occurred along the way. This was also the period in which Scott put down his thoughts in his only major interview – ‘Of Woolsheds, Houses and People’ – published in the periodical Islands in 1973.

Together this interview and these three houses – all until recently still occupied by the owners who commissioned them – give us insight into the way Scott worked with clients to achieve some of his most

interesting houses, while also revealing the origins of, and the reality behind, some of the myths that now surround him.

Bruce and Estelle Martin chose Scott for the design of a new home on a section of subdivided farmland at Bridge Pā, outside Hastings. In 1965 the Martins had been among the first wave of New Zealand potters to go professional, both leaving hospital jobs in order to pot full-time. The new site was needed to accommodate the new scale of operation, and they commissioned both a house and workshops.

The site builds to a gentle rise, and it was on his first visit that Scott identified the top of that rise as the location for the house. As was the case with so many clients with whom Scott worked well, the Martins did not have a list of requirements but instead a list of the things they didn’t want, in their case carpets, wallpapers and venetian blinds – all strongly embedded symbols of suburban conformity. Scott visited them in their existing house and talked about

2. The Martin House (1969-70) was a recognised masterpiece, built in a time of economic affluence.

3. The final cost for the Arrowsmith House (1978-80) earned Scott the moniker, ‘The Plausible Rogue’.

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4. John Scott visited the Martin family in their previous home to discuss their lifestyle and requirements, and the built form of the house is a direct result of those conversations.

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their lifestyle and the requirements that arose from having teenagers at home. He also spoke directly with the boys, and the built form of the Martin House – small bedrooms supported by a communal area – is a direct result of those conversations.

There was a connection between Scott and Bruce and Estelle Martin in that they were all craftspeople, appreciating craft itself, in all forms, and in particular admiring the Japanese. The Martins had a dislike of commissions – they were seldom satisfied with works made at the behest of clients – and so they didn’t want to put Scott in a similar position.

The process of receiving council-ready drawings took around six months. Through this period, Bruce Martin now recognises, they were being led by Scott to a new place in terms of their thinking. He would turn up at their home and present a drawing made on the back of a scruffy piece of paper and, having discussed it, he’d say, ‘I’ll leave it with you.’ The Martins would consider the sketch, thinking through how they would live in the new, more open-plan type of space it represented. When they met again with Scott, now ready to agree, the architect would present a more recent drawing that pushed the concepts even further.

The Martins were building in a period of affluence.

New Zealand’s economy had boomed through the 1960s, with a resulting rise in incomes. Although the National government was tired, economic indicators were comparatively good. Interest rates were low, and the Martins’ $11,000 building society mortgage was at a manageable six percent for what was a $32,000 build. Although seldom thought of as such, craft pottery was one of the few boom industries of the 1970s. Within a few years, the business was sufficiently buoyant for the Martins to commission Scott to extend their workshops; and when, soon after, interest rates reached 10 percent, they decided to pay off their mortgage. They felt sure difficult times were ahead.

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Fred and Jenny Rogers were not part of the craft scene. Fred had been a builder who had worked on architect-designed projects. He knew Scott and his work and had warmed to his laid-back, personal style. By 1974, when they started to think about a new home, Fred was a milkman and Jenny was a stay-at-home mother of two and expecting a third child. There was, they thought, evidence enough that Scott was an architect capable of designing small houses. So when they purchased a plot of land in the countryside above Havelock North, they invited him to visit. Again he immediately recognised what became the eventual site of the house.

The climate had changed significantly since the Martins had built. The National government under Jack Marshall had lost the election to Labour.

Under Norman Kirk, the country was in many ways optimistic and embracing change, but economic uncertainty was beginning to become a significant factor in daily life. As the Rogers were beginning to build, oil prices were on the rise and inflation was nudging 11.3 percent.

As clients the Rogers weren’t interested in directing Scott. Instead, they just wanted to see what he might come up with. Their specific requirements were few: ‘an obvious front door, not too high a profile and an integrated garage’. It took a while to get plans, but they visited Scott in his office and also discovered he could be lured to evening meetings with the promise of a glass of sherry. The drawings that arrived were sufficiently detailed to pass council muster and Fred began building. This process was long – 17 months – in part because of the simultaneous demands of an early-morning milk run. At the end of the build, they and their three children moved into an incomplete house, with bare concrete floors and a kitchen sink propped up by pieces of 4 x 3, but they were now resident in a home that had, miraculously, come in on budget.

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5. The Rogers House.

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Les and Lorraine Arrowsmith had bought a large plot of land in Greenmeadows in Hawke’s Bay and approached Scott, inviting him to visit the site. He turned up, barefooted, late one night; even in the dark, he was emphatic about the site on which they should build, sketching something quickly on a scrap of paper.

The two-storey design reflected Lorraine’s apprehension about the then isolated site and had upstairs bedrooms. Like the Martins before them, the Arrowsmiths had a list of rejected materials: ‘no plastic, paint, lino, or wallpaper’. They were aware of the Martin House and had visited the pottery. Crafts of all type were a long-term interest of Lorraine’s as was collecting colonial furniture.

Lorraine noticed that during the design process Scott tended to finish sentences with ‘you know what I mean’, which she felt was clearly a way of establishing a mutual position and ensuring clients were on board, not only with the project but also with his wider thinking.

She in fact often didn’t ‘know what he meant’, but this was part of a learning process instituted by Scott.

The cost projection on the house was $40,000, but the finished result cost $80,000. The couple refinanced twice, leading Lorraine’s father to dub Scott ‘The Plausible Rogue’. They moved into a barely finished house with bare concrete floors and a wooden interior that needed oiling, a process they undertook themselves over the following eight years.

All the clients involved had a good working relationship with their architect, characterised by real warmth and sense of connection. They describe Scott as ‘wild-haired, barefooted, weathered, soft-hearted, responsive and above all charismatic’.

Certainly, when Scott was part of a larger practice, drawings were produced with regularity. The Martins were advised by a draughtsman in the office to ring every week to 10 days to keep their project at the

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6. Interior detail of the Martin House. 7. Fred Rogers undertook the construction of his house in an effort to keep costs to a minimum, during a time of economic uncertainty in New Zealand. 8 and 9. Martin House.

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forefront of Scott’s mind. The Rogers received plans from which Fred could build without the need for much in the way of further detail. There were issues with the plans of the Arrowsmith House, which lacked finer detail, but the house itself is more complex than the previous two.

What, then, were Scott’s motivations? He preferred clients who were from the beginning like-minded. He also took on clients who he saw had the potential to grow. He often departed from might-have-been-clients when he recognised people stuck in a particular way of thinking and unable to move.

In all these three examples, Scott took his clients on a journey towards a greater complexity in architectural thinking while at the same time achieving a greater simplicity in their domestic arrangements. As part of this process, the Rogers were invited to Scott’s own home to see how he himself lived. In each case, the sensibility of the clients was changed by the experience and all remarked that, in different ways, growing up in a John Scott house had variously affected the architectural and spatial awareness of their children.

Picking apart the myths that surround Scott and his client relationships in the hope of getting to the man himself is a futile task. In many regards, the man and the legend of the man were one and the same, reflective of his times. As an architect, Scott strove to bring clients and the houses he designed for them into one entity, within a wider community context. Scott’s ability to quickly determine the exact site reflected his belief that ‘a building... is a piece of furniture in that other space created by, contained by, trees, hills and other buildings’.

That all this could be achieved is perhaps most evident in the Martin House, in which, almost 50 years later, site, owner and architecture seem one. But then again the Martin House has always been a showcase of Scott’s achievements. Turn for a moment to the Arrowsmith House and Rogers House, both in their own way exemplary examples of Scott’s work, both sitting confidently on their sites. One senses that they too fit into what is now a recognisable community of Scott’s work, the success of which is borne out by their longevity as successful homes for the clients who commissioned them.

John Scott Works

by David Straight Published by Massey University Press RRP $70

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A survey of the career of one of New Zealand’s most important architects. John Scott is a legend in New Zealand architecture circles. A regional modernist who mostly practised in Hawke’s Bay, his life’s works of houses, churches and community buildings have attained near mythical status since his early death in 1992.

Despite being so well regarded and groundbreaking, his practice has never been well documented.

This handsome new book is determined to address that gap. It was quite an enterprise in itself. Auckland photographer David Straight found himself beguiled by Scott and over a two-year period set out to photograph as many of the architect’s projects as he could track down.

John Scott Works showcases more than 40 of Scott’s projects, from the famous Futuna chapel to lesser known churches and a range of beautiful homes.

Photography by David Straight davidstraight.net

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HOME + JAMES HARDIE

BEST DRESSED

Photography — Simon Wilson

Project Pavilion House Architectural designer Peter Davis Location Waikanae Brief Design for contrasting criteria and to incorporate nature.

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Contrasting criteria, such as an owner’s idiosyncrasies, are often factored into home design. Architectural designer Peter Davis was challenged to accommodate spaces for strident noise as well as serene silence when designing this handsome home in Waikanae.

“The brief was to provide room for the client’s interest in music and motorbikes, as well as quiet spaces for relaxation,” says Davis. “Above all I was tasked with creating flexible living solutions for anywhere from two people to a crowd.”

The owners asked for a single-level home with clean, modern lines and plenty of natural light. Nature was another important dimension in Davis’s design.

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“We wanted to retain the mature planting around the perimeter of the site and get a sense of nature in the house.

A pavilion-style design provided the quality of light we were after, as well as areas of interest, shelter and privacy.”

The clients’ desire was for organic flow between indoors and out. Simplicity was found to be both the solution and the unifying concept. “We used a really simple construction methodology to achieve a really high-quality feel,” says Davis.

Along with creating a logical flow from entry to living pavilion and to guest bedroom/garage pavilion, I opted to let the spatial design of the house and its clean external lines be the hero.”

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1— Stria Cladding by James Hardie was chosen for its ease of installation, smart appearance and cost efficiency. 2— Glazing invites the exterior inside, making this house feel like a garden pavilion. 3— The striking black is doubled in ornamental ponds in the courtyard, and softened by lines of trees.

Davis and the David Reid Homes team agreed on Stria Cladding by James Hardie. The builders appreciate its ease of installation, cost-efficiency and longevity.

“It achieves the bold vertical lines we wanted to complement the linear design,” says Davis. “Stria Cladding is much easier to install and work with than, say, a metal tray – and it also worked out to be more cost efficient.”

Davis is particularly pleased with the home’s exterior and the experience of encountering it from the outside. “I think the eastern external aspect has a quite a striking yet dignified aesthetic as you approach the house, leading into the sheltered courtyard.”

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Bauhaus Building —— Walter Gropius, 1925–26

rialto.co.nz AUCKLAND

WELLINGTON

DUNEDIN

CHRISTCHURCH

May 2–19 @ Rialto Cinemas

May 23–June 9 @ Embassy Theatre

June 13–23 @ Rialto Cinemas

June 27–July 10 @ Deluxe Cinemas @ Alice Cinemas

NEW PLYMOUTH

HAVELOCK NORTH

June 20–26 @ Event Cinemas

June 13–19 @ Event Cinemas

Brought to you in association with Altherm Window Systems.

Winner: Jack McKinney crafts a raw-boned concrete home for friends on an inner-city Auckland site

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Best Small Home: Spacecraft Architects overcome a vertiginous site to create something very special indeed

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Best Retreat: Richard Naish gathers five buildings around a courtyard and mountain views in Central Otago

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Best Multi-Unit: Architectus shows us how good apartment living in central Auckland can be

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Best Interior: Stuart Gardyne of architecture + rethinks conventional bach living on Great Barrier Island

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Finalist: Vaughn McQuarrie draws on the bivouac tradition for a hiker’s hut in the Queenstown hills

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Home of the Year

Text: Simon Farrell-Green

Photography: Patrick Reynolds This page and inset The pouring of 56 tonnes of concrete to form the grid-like roof was a hugely complicated undertaking.

With its striking concrete diagrid roof and sense of fun, our Home of the Year 2019 is a truly Auckland house.

Rough Diamond Best City Home

Architect: Jack McKinney Architects

Winner

“It’s sort of simple on purpose,” says architect Jack McKinney, self-deprecatingly of our Home of the Year 2019. McKinney designed the home in Grey Lynn, Auckland, for his long-time clients and friends, builder Cameron Ireland and Rachael Newnham, and their three children. “Sometimes a project depends on whether it’s immaculately perfect, where this lines up with that. But what we’ve learned with Cam is that his mind is an impatient one. So we had to come up with something that was a big shape, robust enough to survive a bit of editing onsite.”

By McKinney’s count, he and Ireland have built 11 alterations, three commercial buildings, four-anda-half new houses “and two billboards” over 12 years.

It’s an extraordinary output that speaks to an ongoing friendship and trust that has developed, project by project, between architect and clients. The pair meets every morning at 10 to talk through the day’s issues.

“That allows him some freedom, but it keeps me in the dialogue so I can say, ‘Oh you might regret that’.”

McKinney’s design is centred around an in-situ concrete roof, laid in a diagrid pattern of verticals and angles, over which he laid a glass roof in some places, and an insulated roof in others. It weighs 56 tonnes and soars from 2.2 metres up to 4.3 metres. You know it’s heavy and you know it’s made from concrete, but you can see the sky and it floods the space with light. “You somehow know that it’s 56 tonnes of weight above your head. It’s quite different to timber beams – it’s not oppressive, but there is drama to it.”

The concrete is deliberately left rough, not ground or polished or tidied up. The day the concrete for the stairs was poured, it rained, leaving big sploshes and puddled dents in the steps; they’re left exactly as they came out of the formwork. It’s not unpolished, and where it needs to be crisply detailed it is, but there’s a joy in the making, a roughness that would – let’s be honest – probably freak out most clients.

Above The diagrid slips over the butler’s pantry where it’s lit

by LED light strips.

Left Natural light illuminates part of the stairwell but segues to cement fibreboard, which is lit by LEDs. The ‘Zio’ dining table and chairs are by Marcel Wanders for Moooi, with ‘Tuisku’ bowl by ‘Showroom Finland’ from Katalog. The art work by Jin Jiangbo is from Starkwhite.

Right The kitchen features weathered timber cabinetry and Gaggenau appliances.

The ‘Hex’ bowl on the kitchen island is

by Tom Dixon.

Following page Cameron Ireland and Rachael Newnham with their children Jack (far left), Katie (centre) and Elliot (right).

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“We toyed with making it smooth,” says Ireland, “but rough-sawn is rich in texture – we wanted it to feel hand made.”

Things get clever in the contrasts between light and dark, which emphasise the seeming lightness of the roof. Details below the roof – walls, joinery, cabinetry, cladding – are black, which makes it look even more floaty. When you leave the living area you go down a long hallway clad in waxed steel, which is dark and moody and sucks in light from either end. Always, in this house, you’re drawn towards the light that comes pouring down through the roof in a dappled pattern.

There’s a back story, of course. A few years ago – and heritage lovers of Grey Lynn should probably stop reading now – the Ireland-Newnhams bought a large site between two roads. It accommodated the Bethany Centre, which was built in 1913, a home for ‘unwed’ mothers. They demolished it and McKinney’s first task was to masterplan seven sites that closely match the long, narrow sites nearby. “It was about a quarter of the block,” says Ireland, “so we had seven sites to create

something quite amazing.” They sold a few, and built four, all designed by McKinney: this is the last one, and the family’s permanent home.

A lot of the work the three of them have done together has been in Auckland’s inner-west suburbs, where tight heritage controls have made contemporary architecture considerably more difficult in recent years. They were delighted when they realised that, thanks to a quirk of planning, there was no heritage overlay for the site, even though it is surrounded by pretty villas. “We’ve done quite well to push things quite far,” says McKinney, of the various houses and alterations, “but there was a bit of pent-up frustration to do something unrestrained on both sides. Just to do something fun.”

McKinney describes the design in breezy, uncomplicated terms. The site is long and narrow, with a two-storey fall from west to east. “Richard Naish built a small hill town to deal with that,” he says of our Home of the Year 2015, two doors up from this one.

“But we’ve been much more simplistic.”

Left ‘Puppy’ in green and pink by Eero Aarnio for Magis on the main deck.

Below left Plants zigzag up the bank at the rear of the house.

Below right Katie jumps into the pool.

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Left The steel-lined hallway, where Rigby the family cat sits, leads to the stairway and up to the main bedroom.

The art work by John Reynolds is from Starkwhite.

Below Katie climbs the bedroom wall that leads to a loft.

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Right ‘Knit’ chair by Patrick Norguet for Ethimo from ECC. Below left and right Concrete stairs were left exposed to the elements after pouring and have taken on weathered details.

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The first big move was to build the house hard on the southern boundary, in breach of the usual rules governing side yards, since the couple also owns the house next door. This gave them as much room as possible on the northern side. The house uses the big basement garage as a sort of podium – without feeling like a fish bowl, there’s a lovely connection to the street and nearby Grey Lynn Park from the living areas and deck. “We spend a lot of time outside on the deck, even in winter,” says Newnham. “It feels like the house continues across to the park – your vision doesn’t stop.”

You enter the home up a long flight of pouredconcrete steps and into a voluminous, open-plan kitchen and living area, which opens out to a deck on two sides, a narrow pool and a small lawn. Beyond that, a hallway services four bedrooms with lofts – one for each of the kids, plus a spare – on the northern side, and service rooms (bathroom, laundry, guest WC) on the other. The main bedroom is upstairs, and there’s a separate media room: it’s a straightforward, practical design. “We can have heaps of people here,” says Newnham, “but it never feels chaotic.”

There’s also drama between front and back, thanks to the waxed steel that lines the hallway on three sides.

“It didn’t have natural light,” says McKinney. “We knew the living area was expansive, so we thought, why don’t we just make it really dark?”

The distinctive diagonals nearly didn’t make it.

Pouring the long vertical support beams was a laborious task, which involved building plywood boxing lined with rough-sawn boards and propping them up on an angle. The steel bars inside the concrete are 35mm thick – a gauge so heavy it broke the small plastic feet

“There was a lot of freedom in design and licence to be more exuberant than usual.”

Above ‘Zenhit’ day bed

by Kris Van Puyvelde for Royal Botannia from ECC. Right The elevated site allows for plenty of sky and neighbourhood views.

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that held the reinforcing bar up while the concrete was poured around it. Ireland’s team had to tie the steel bars to the top of the boxing, pour concrete, then gently lower the bars on top before pouring more concrete over the top. Then the concrete slid to the bottom of the slope, so they stayed on site until long after dark, raking it back into place until it cured.

McKinney tells the story neatly: “As we were designing it, I said, ‘It would be great to have these diagonals in here Cam... So you’re fine to do them Cam? Because if you’re not going to do them we’ll give you a different house, because it needs those diagonals.’ And then half way through, he said, ‘We don’t need these diagonals do we?’” McKinney waits a beat. “And that’s why I’m there every day at 10.”

Design notebook Q&A with architect Jack McKinney

big cantilevers, raw concrete, rugged surfaces – all things I love architecturally.

The exploration of darkness – black steel in the light-less hallway – was a first for me. There’s a graphic quality to diagonal lines and shapes made by the skylights.

An interesting aspect is being aware of the concrete mass above you in the living room, but it’s not oppressive because of its tilt and the gentle way it rests on the chimney. I find that very satisfying.

You’ve worked with Cam on many projects – how does this affect the way you design for him? We have a body of work that we are always trying to surpass.

Finding new outcomes keeps both of us interested. We are currently exploring concrete construction, with each project slightly more ambitious in methodology or result. Because Cam is the builder and client, it allows more experimentation than you ever could within a normal client, architect and builder relationship.

What were you drawing on with the concrete roof? Concrete is a wonderful material, used really well in domestic architecture by South American architects such as Oscar Neimeyer and Paulo Mendes da Rocha. The diagrid is a classic form in the architectural playbook, and feels particularly correct in concrete. There is a great history of the diagrid with exponents such as Louis Kahn, I.M. Pei, and the amazing Sheats-Goldstein house in Los Angeles

by John Lautner which features in The Big Lebowski. It was fun to quote all of these sources but to do some different things, in particular the cantilever. As an element, I thought the diagrid was lying dormant and ready for a resurgence.

Tell us about the collaborative process.

Everyone involved has a good eye and good ideas, so I wanted Cam and Rachael to have input as the job progressed.

I resolved planning and siting, with the strategy to establish a strong sculptural idea – heavy concrete lattice balanced on a podium – that could withstand onsite improvisation and editing. Part of the delight is traces of the building process – notes made on ply formwork imprinted on concrete beams, areas where rain hit stairs or air pockets formed in the concrete aren’t what you’d expect but they imbue humanity and show the energy of making something so complex.

What does the house do that others you’ve designed don’t? There was a lot of freedom in design and licence to be more exuberant than usual. There are

1. Entry 2. Garage 3. Garden 4. Pool 5. Terrace 6. Living 7. Dining 8. Kitchen 9. Pantry 10. Bathroom 11. Laundry 12. En suite 13. Bedroom

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Text: Greg Dixon

Photography: David Straight This page A precipitous projection from a hillside above Island Bay, Wellington. Inset A glassy face of the living area.

Our Best Small Home does more than overcome a difficult site – it makes it into something rather special indeed.

Magic Trick Best Small Home

Architect: Spacecraft Architects

The vertiginous hills and dizzying slopes of Wellington are full of human interventions.

Rows of homes perched precariously atop rugged slopes like so many gulls facing into the wind. Some houses seem to hold on tight and peer cautiously over plummeting cliffs, while others appear to carelessly dangle their feet over the edges of deep ravines.

Holly Beals and Grayson Gilmour’s new home, overlooking Island Bay and Cook Strait, is such a place.

At the end of an anonymous cul-de-sac, past a gate you nearly miss, and then down a narrow walkway of many, many steps, you find it with its back to the hill, its feet dangling and face presented to the wind. As it gazes across Island Bay and out to sea, the house also appears to float among trees. You can’t help feeling like it’s a kind of magic trick.

Designed for the couple by Caro Robertson and Tim Gittos of Wellington’s Spacecraft Architects, Beals and Gilmour’s home is a clever but also playful response to a steep and exposed site you’d imagine

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few people – even Wellingtonians – would have taken on quite so enthusiastically.

Holly, an industrial designer, and Grayson, a musician and composer, found the section on Trade Me three years ago. “It wasn’t advertised very well at all,” says Beals. “There was this terrible picture on a grey, horrible day and a heading that said ‘Challenging, but not impossible’,” she says.

Gaining access to have look at the section – an overgrown jungle of large trees strangled by vines – was challenging, too, but thankfully not impossible either. After making a rope ladder and bushwhacking down, the couple found a small pre-existing excavation and, just visible through the trees, an impressive view.

They enlisted Robertson and Gittos – a couple who are old friends and who specialise in developing such sites – to give their verdict. They said buy now. “Everyone we’ve been working with in our practice is trying to find a cheap scrap of land to build on,” says Robertson.

“Holly and Grayson found this – which obviously had

Left A fold in the roofline where the home’s two wings meet, the upper sitting 90 degrees above the lower.

Top right and right Access to the home is down a long concrete path and steps. The landing here leads to another set of steps that take you to slidingglass entry doors. The landing also leads to an external entrance to a music studio.

Following page The main entrance steps into the dining and living area through sliding doors.

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bad access but also has an extraordinary view – and they’ve been the envy of all of our friends because they bought it so cheaply.”

It was a site defined by constraints. The access path is less than a metre wide, while the existing excavation at the top of the section, which needed to be retained, indisputably fixed the home’s position. Then, within just a few metres of the cutting, the section begins dropping precipitously, leaving the home’s feet to dangle. There was also the matter of the wind. The home needed to shelter its occupants from the prevailing north-westerly and, of course, Wellington’s infamous southerly.

As well as designing a home for the young couple, space had to be made for a studio for Gilmour to write and record music.

“We didn’t want an enormous house,” says Beals.

“We wanted something that was intimate and texturally interesting with timber, concrete and steel. We wanted to bring the outside in and see this changing view

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every day, and experience the weather from inside the house. Feeling connected to the outside without having to be outside is a really healthy thing for us.”

Over what they dubbed a ‘design weekend’, Robertson, Gittos and Beals, with the musician as umpire, kicked around ideas. “Holly was looking for a little spatial complexity,” says Gittos. “And we were coming from a place where we know how hard that is – and how much it costs.”

A week or so later, Gittos hit upon the idea for the design’s 93-square-metre startling form. Seen from above, it forms an X shape – and so earned the project the name ‘X-Marks’. When approached from the ground, the home is formed by two wings, one above the other, with the upper wing at 90 degrees to the lower. A narrow, internal stairway connects the two.

The lower wing forms the home’s living areas, with the entrance through floor-to-ceiling sliding doors into a dining area that flows into a living area. From here,

“In this case, we dismissed prefabrication... It doesn’t take much longer to hand carry [materials] and it’s actually more cost effective.”

Left ‘One Step Up’ shelving by Francis Cayouette for Normann Copenhagen from Backhouse.

Below ‘Gallons’ table

by Holly Beals for Candywhistle.

Left Tim Gittos says the cross bracing is an economic and elegant strengthening device.

The ‘Gallons’ low table and ‘Adele’ chair are both by Holly Beals for Candywhistle. The ‘Bucket’ pendant is by Spacecraft Architects.

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Left There’s a textural change from the Tasmanian oak floors of the living room to the concrete floors of the kitchen. The ‘Bucket’ pendant is by Spacecraft Architects.

Right and below Grayson Gilmour’s studio has both internal and external access. The angled ceiling and walls provide a neutral acoustic space. There’s also a view for inspiration and contemplation.

through a picture window you can see across the Strait to the snow-tipped top of the South Island.

There’s interplay between the upper and lower wings. On the lower are sheltered verandahs with macrocarpa floors and ceilings either side of the dining area, and a small courtyard with a triangle of garden.

The dining area’s sliding external doors mean one can be opened and the other closed to let the outdoors in, but keep the wind out.

From the Tasmanian oak floors of the living area, there’s a step up to the kitchen’s concrete floor, which proves a textural change, but also a slab that warms in the sun. While the lower level’s windows and glass doors open to sun and outdoors, the upper level provides a retreat, with a main bedroom, a second bedroom for the couple’s new baby Billie, and a bathroom that’s a masterclass in the use of limited space, but also features the luxury of a raised bath with views.

The most discrete area of retreat, however, is Gilmour’s studio. It has separate, external access (so clients and collaborators don’t have to traipse through the home) and the angled ceiling and walls provide a neutral acoustic space. It also offers Gilmour a view, one that benefits his artistic process. “The joke is that he’s got the largest room in the house,” says Beals.

Although Robertson deadpans that “Grayson wasn’t a megalomaniac at all”.

Gilmour says he’s been happy to trade the view from his former central-city studio for the bay and sea. “It’s one of those key things when you’re working within an art form that’s really cerebral... to have somewhere to gaze that is wide and expansive.”

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Left Macrocarpa has been used for cladding.

It also features on the floors and ceilings of the sheltered verandahs and small garden courtyard.

Below left The concrete weight of the building sits at the back of the site, its lighter context touching down the front.

And there are other virtues when you chance to build on a rugged slope like this. “The elements are always changing,” says Gilmour. “It’s kind of in keeping with Wellington as a city. If you look out there, and then again 10 minutes later, chances are there will be a completely different cloud formation or a southerly rolling in – something is always happening.”

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Below Grayson Gilmour (left) and Tim Gittos of Spacecraft. The ‘Mister X’ table is by Biagio Cisotti and Sandra Laube for Plank from Backhouse. The ‘Pedro’ chairs are by Craig Bond for Candywhistle.

“There are only four points where the house touches down at the front – they are fairly hefty, yet simple, footings.”

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Design notebook

Surely a site like this fills you with trepidation? Tim Gittos— No, it was great – all these constraints breed a lot of creativity.

Are sections like this – cheap but difficult – increasingly sought after in Wellington?

Caro Robertson— Certainly. We take on ground issues that most firms don’t want to do. What we always tell people is that you are going to spend some money getting the site to the point where you can build. We say that the $100,000 or whatever you spend bringing the site up to buildable condition is considered part of your land cost.

Q&A with Tim Gittos and Caro Robertson of Spacecraft

Did this site need much work?

TG— No. But we put the weight – the concrete – at the back where the existing cutting was, and made the house lighter at the front using steel poles, lighter materials and cross-bracing. There are only four points where the house touches down at the front – they are fairly hefty, yet simple, footings. The cross braces are just so good, I love them, and they’re great in a seismic zone.

What materials have you used?

TG— Inside, Tasmanian oak flooring and macrocarpa. For cladding we’ve also used macrocarpa and BD900 trapezoidal Colorsteel. We like it because you get bolder shadows and it’s tough.

1. Entry 2. Dining 3. Living 4. Verandah 5. Laundry 6. Bathroom 7. Kitchen 8. Storage shed 9. Workshop 10. Courtyard garden 11. Entry stairs 12. Porch 13. Music studio 14. Bedroom 15. Hall

The cross-bracing is used inside and outside, including across the living room’s picture window. Why? TG— We’ve done this quite a bit, the big cross in the window. Some people find that aberrant, but we argue that you couldn’t have that window if you didn’t have that cross, well not without spending another $50,000.

It’s a really economic and elegant way to brace a wall and it’s also really light.

The chain-link fence, rather than glass walls or a balustrade around the northern verandah, gives what is a suburban home an urbanist sense of style. Is that why you did it? TG— Horizontal rails, traditional balustrades and glass are really expensive.

The chain-link is something we’ve used in the past and it’s incredibly cost effective.

The really lovely thing is it encloses the space and makes that verandah feel like a room, but you still get air through it, you can still see through to the trees around you.

You chose not to link the upper and lower wings with, say, a double height space or a void where they’re joined by the stairs. Why not? TG— In some ways it would make this home a hell of a lot smaller. I think architects often use double height in small houses as a way of making the space feel bigger. It looks bigger, but I reckon it feels a lot smaller. Acoustic separation has a huge amount to do with how big a place feels.

The access point is very narrow, how did you get the materials onsite?

CR— In this case, we dismissed prefabrication; to be cost effective you need to produce a thousand units a year.

And craning or choppering in material requires onsite storage and there wasn’t any. It doesn’t take much longer to hand carry and it’s actually more cost effective.

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Text: Claire McCall

Photography: Patrick Reynolds This page A series of pavilions are set across undulating topography, individually orientated to focus on key views. Inset A stairway between the pavilions.

Richard Naish designs a home near Arrowtown that seems to emerge from the spectacular mountain landscape.

Ground Work Best Retreat

Architect: RTA Studio

Rather like an English teacher tasking students to write an essay with no topic or word limit, this Arrowtown site posed an immense challenge: an over-abundance of opportunity. In usual circumstances, the parameters of possibility are clear: ring-fenced by section size, concerns about privacy, height-to-boundary considerations, how to capture the most sunlight, or constrain the view. But what if the view is a spectacle of 360-degree awesomeness?

The Wakatipu Basin is the hole in the geological doughnut of frosted, jagged peaks that rise from the valley in a wraparound panorama that can be overwhelming. When architect Richard Naish of RTA Studio first walked this landscape with his clients, a sculptor and a graphic designer, it was to demarcate a building site. “Very unusually, we had the freedom to choose,” says Naish.

They settled on a place with rolling topography: a place of gentle, folded movement where the bulldozer would stand silent in the contractor’s yard and the home’s forms would grow organically as if emerging from the earth. “We took our cue from the schist outcrops that are scattered throughout Central Otago,” says Naish.

Rather than the expected – a home that makes the big call with a singular focus – the tyranny of choice was deftly avoided by a plan that resembles a radiating star, with elements fragmented around a central core.

Richard calls these pavilions ‘view catchers’ and a cobbled forecourt is the centrifugal force that tethers these points to each other.

In all there are five buildings: the main living container is connected to the main suite by a glass conservatory, there’s a separate pavilion for the couple’s two teenage boys and a stand-alone garage and garden shed. This means that, during the iced nights of winter, the boys at times skitter across a glassine course to bed. “I was half expecting them to veto that and ask for a closed-in walkway,” says Naish. But no.

Not only was the architect blessed with an exquisite site but clients who were as brave as the black-run brigade. They were unfazed by the disintegrated plan and loved the formality of the forecourt. “It’s not an activated courtyard,” says Naish. On the contrary, the pavilions turn their backs to it and look outwards to the tectonic universe.

In light of the open brief and untrammelled by any preconceived notions of what a house should look like, RTA Studio turned to the landscape for context.

They researched the gold-mining heritage of the basin and its pastoral past. They settled on a palette of rock and rusted steel. Then they sliced and diced the history of rural buildings that sparsely dotted this area, crafting forms that are like the traditional shed split in half. They made a scale model of their thinking and presented it to the clients, who “loved it from the word go”.

Here, now, is an encampment in a field of green where the grass flows up and around the sides of the buildings and split-face granite pavers ride and slide over the ground. Robust monolithic forms are crisp against the skyline, their edges sharp and uncompromising. Living zones are clad in schist while bedroom wings have a Corten coat. “We used the same stone or steel on the roof surfaces for a completeness of form,” says Naish.

Left The bronze front door stands gem-like surrounded by pavilions clad in Glenorchy schist, Corten steel, pre-cast concrete and powdercoated aluminium.

‘Kelp’ by Mark Hill is a fixture in the forecourt.

Below ‘Korowai’ by Jasmine Clark inside the home’s entrance.

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Below left The windows in the conservatory, which hunkers into the site, retract to connect with the exceptional landscape.

Below right The living room pavilion and entry box are connected by a glass wall that transitions the spaces.

Right Hand-blown pendants by Luke Jacomb hang in the living area where a family friend takes in the view. Charlie, the miniature dachshund, sits at the foot of the ‘Mah Jong’ sofa by Hans Hopfer for Roche Bobois.

The concrete floor is tinted with ‘Superblack’

by Peter Fell.

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Following page The Remarkables from the living room.

The site was surveyed to avoid manipulating the landscape. As a result, pavilions follow natural contours of the land, affording each with a different feel as they hug the earth, or stand proud of it, facing the view.

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Across the forecourt and past a tree sculpture that takes a determined stride as its arms and hair sweep away with the wind, there is the glint of a bronze front door. Held within a faceted block of concrete, it’s a portal to an interior that celebrates solidity with a vigorous bulk that makes the occupants feel nurtured and safe. “We have a tradition of lightweight buildings in New Zealand, but this is about heavy mass.”

Naish says the design has a very relaxed programme – there is no right or wrong way to move through and explore the spaces. The granite pavers traverse the threshold to a glazed room where a concrete bench-seat is a place to admire a soft mound of green rising just beyond the windows, contrasting it against the strength of the distant powdered peaks. The owners say this is one of their favourite areas – a moment that distils the view.

At times, there’s an angularity to the design – art mimics nature – as rooflines slope up to pay homage to the mountains or, as in the bedrooms, dip down in reverence to concentrate the view. “Even though it’s a large house, every part is used regularly. There are no wasted spaces or rooms that sit empty,” says one of the owners.

In the main living zone, a fireplace in Glenorchy schist has monumental presence, but ceilings and soffits in Victorian ash and amassed pendant lighting bring intimate scale.

For Naish, one of the most successful moments of the architecture is not when you are up close and personal with the design but when you see it from afar. It feels right in terms of scale; it feels like a piece of sculpture in the landscape. “When you see it from a distance, you really get it.”

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Left The stairs lead to the main bedroom, which is clad in Corten.

The artwork at left is by Christine Hill and a piece

by Thyrza Bindon hangs in the stairwell.

“It feels right in terms of scale; it feels like a piece of sculpture in the landscape.�

Below The en suite off the main bedroom. While you step up to the main bedroom, the pavilion sits connected within the landscape.

Below right From the main bedroom looking back to the office. To the right are steel-clad walk-in wardrobes.

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Left The kids traverse the forecourt from the living pavilion to reach their bedrooms.

Below left The living pavilion follows the contour of the site.

Below Night view of the main bedroom, en-suite bathroom and study wing, which opens out to a private garden.

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Design notebook

Which aspects of the project are you most proud? The overall composition – the way the house sits in its unique natural surroundings as a cluster of objects, they almost seem scattered as remnants of both land and occupation of the region.

How did you work out where to place the elements of the home on the property and in relation to each other? We walked the property and tested two sites, with this one becoming the preferred. We liked its exposure to key views, together with its undulating topography. We then set out to arrange a series of pavilions individually orientated to focus on key views. The living pavilion focuses to The Remarkables, the main bedroom to the Soho ranges and the boys’ bedrooms sink into the land and look out to The Remarkables, but with quite a different relationship to the land.

Q&A with Richard Naish of RTA Studio

The house was a finalist at the 2018 World Architecture Festival (WAF) Awards in the House, Future Projects category. Tell us about that experience.

What did the judges comment on? We were shortlisted to present the house at WAF in Amsterdam – a live presentation to a panel of three international architect judges. It was very well received and they appreciated the concept for its contextual sensitivity and relevance to both the regional landscape and vernacular.

They were particularly interested in the forecourt as an arrival space, with respect to the outward focusing pavilions tuned to their respective views. They were also intrigued by the glasshouse space as an indoor-outdoor connecting device in the plan.

It seems you had the dream architectclient relationship. There was a great deal of trust and freedom to allow us to engage in an analytical and creative process.

Also, being creative people made them naturally receptive and open to engaging in a house that perhaps challenges the incumbent family-home model. I also think we all shared a vision for making a building that contextually felt appropriate in this outstanding landscape, so that the house was comfortably, but also assertively, of the landscape.

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HOME + PETER FELL

CAST IN CONCRETE

An award-winning Arrowtown home by Richard Naish of RTA Studio makes the most of coloured concrete by Peter Fell.

Come up the stone stairs and through the courtyard of this Arrowtown home, between buildings of schist and Corten steel, and a tall brass door is set into an angular concrete portal.

It’s a suitably dramatic, yet sympathetic, first impression. Faced with mountain views on all sides, architect Richard Naish of RTA Studio broke the house down into chunks, each with its own aspect and contrasting materials.

Bedrooms are clad in Corten steel and the living areas in schist, while the entry is set apart in fractured tilt-slab concrete that seems to mimic the faceted lines of the mountain behind.

Exterior concrete has been coloured with Peter Fell PFL677, a slate-like tone that works beautifully with the schist in the courtyard and the surrounding mountainscape.

Inside the home, polished concrete floors are tinted with Peter Fell ‘Superblack’ – the darkest available concrete tint on the market. The look is minimalist and clean, but also practical. The dark floors attract winter sun, creating a heat sink that stores energy during the day, releasing warmth at night as the home cools.

The home is proof positive that good design needs little augmentation.

Peter Fell peterfell.co.nz Above — The entrance portal is set into tilt-slab concrete from Bradford Precast of Ashburton, and tinted with Peter Fell PFL677.

Left— Floors in the home were supplied

by Allied Concrete, tinted with Peter Fell PFL699 ‘Superblack’, which enhances thermal performance.

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Text: Jo Bates

Photography: Simon Devitt These page and inset Wynyard Central timber-clad ‘Pavilions’ face the park; the ‘Artisan’ apartments at the rear and ‘Mews’ slotted in between.

With three singular designs at Wynyard Quarter, Patrick Clifford’s team at Architectus shows how good apartment living in Auckland can be.

Urban Renewal Best Multi-Unit

Architect: Architectus

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Opposite Outdoor living spaces are fundamental to design across the entire project. Generous decks project from the Artisan apartments.

Above Each part of Wynyard Central offers differing scales and textures to the street.

Right Brick detail at an entrance to the Artisan apartments. The ‘Niho Taniwha’ relief is by Maaka Potini.

It wasn’t so long ago that Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter was a nature-stripped industrial area that had done its days in the timber trade before turning to storing petrochemicals as the ‘Tank Farm’.

The flat patch of reclaimed peninsula with boats berthed at its fringes was gritty and uninviting. When the sea breeze dropped, dank aromas from the few greasy spoons that fed local workers hung in the air.

That was until 2011, when $120 million was poured into developing new public parks and events spaces – it was stage one of a revitalisation and regeneration programme that will continue for about 20 years. With a change of direction, the public started to utilise this prime piece of Auckland and its three kilometres of coast. Interesting things started to happen for people who might consider living there.

Architectus has a long history at Wynyard Quarter, having been appointed by Ports of Auckland to develop the urban design framework for the area back in the early 2000s. The practice was one of three appointed by property developers Willis Bond to submit designs for Wynyard Central, the area’s first residential development, which stands on land tenured for more than 100 years.

“You lead this kind of project with the public domain, not the other way around,” says Patrick Clifford, a founding principal of Architectus. “Don’t think that the market will determine; think that we should provide a built-form framework for the market to participate in.” The approach was to establish broad communities at Wynyard Quarter, he says. “How do you create urban living in an environment that has significant public interest?

It also tries to address the interests of the public versus the interests of the private.”

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Below and right Damian McKeown at the entrance to his Mews home, which is split over three levels.

The home is accessed from a dedicated laneway.

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“We like using good materials, and the relationships between them are about as important as the materials themselves.�

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Architectus responded to the 4500-square-metre east-west orientated site with three residential designs, each with their own visual identity, and with an emphasis on developing family residences. The timber-clad, single-storey, five-level ‘Pavilions’ make a striking presentation to the public park; the brick townhouse-style ‘Mews’ fall in behind, nice and low at three levels; the large-format ‘Artisan’ single-level apartments rise to 11 levels at the rear. All up there are 133 residences, with commercial and retail spaces skirting the ground level.

“We like using good materials and the relationships between them are about as important as the materials themselves,” says Clifford of the staggered timberbrick-concrete hierarchy. “Historically, Wynyard is pretty industrial with the tanks, concrete and marine environment, and in the bid phase we had the idea of green and gritty – green at the park and more gritty as it moved away,” says Clifford.

Fourteen entries serve the residents and their social engagement away from the main public thoroughfares.

The objective works both ways – the street edge isn’t interrupted by an apartment lobby spilling people onto the pavement. Three entrances serve the Pavilions; the eight Mews houses each have their own entrance from a dedicated laneway; the Artisan apartments – which generously run through the building for good ventilation and light – have rear access and are served by three lift cores, which reduce circulation and eliminate the need for internal corridors.

The dwellings range from one to three bedrooms, each with individual characteristics and highly efficient internal arrangements. The Pavilions are predominantly corner apartments that overlook the park and water, with outdoor living providing a deep eave to the cafes and pavements below. At the rear,

Above There’s room on the deck and ample sun to grow a small kitchen garden.

Right McKeown at the window seat, located off the kitchen, which projects into the laneway.

Left The kitchen is located on the home’s second level.

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bedrooms sit within butterfly projections over the Mews’ laneway. The Mews residences are the more experimental of the three – sitting tight between the other buildings and stacked across three levels, with living on the uppermost, plus a roof terrace to access sun and light. The Artisan apartments are typically through-apartments, with some variation at the ends, and with generous outdoor living options.

“We fundamentally made good use of orientation and resources,” says Clifford, referencing design that maximises natural ventilation, insulation and planted roofs to mitigate water run-off. The Greenstar tool for multi-unit housing was developed in parallel with this project and the apartments are generally 7-8 Homestar rated.

Outdoor living across all three buildings was treated with high importance; not as a separate event to the interior. “Climatically, we know there are four seasons in Auckland, but in some ways it’s more like two,” says Clifford. “For six months you are outside, for the other six it’s grey and damp – but even when this comes along you can often have the doors open. Generosity and depth of cover is important and we wanted to make the outdoor spaces as integral as indoor. I’d be surprised if sliding doors weren’t open most of the time. We think that people will get a lot of pleasure out of that and it brings people out to the street.”

At the ground plane, significant thought went into the commercial spaces – their sizes and arrangements differ, attracting what has turned out to be (had they had one) Architectus’ dream list of occupants, including a tailor, architect and barber. “If you want diverse users, you provide diverse spaces and there are plenty of research papers that support this,” says Clifford.

The architect is particularly proud of the care that went into crafting the numerous details across this large-scale project, which was built by LT McGuinness.

“All the people involved had a high degree of commitment to making something enduring. This is not esoteric or an aside, it’s worthy of comment – it’s important as [the project] becomes part of the community of activities and events at Wynyard.”

He hopes the development will play its part in influencing what unfolds across Auckland’s rapidly evolving residential skyline. “We are influenced all the time by good projects and exemplars; more good apartments will help bring more good apartments,” he says. “As people in Auckland, and in New Zealand generally, experience more apartment types, they are going to become more discerning. Apartments are not without their complexities, but we will become more educated and aware that there are different ways of doing these things.”

Above left Artisan apartments.

Left Entrances to the brick-clad Mews.

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Right Custom details include louvres and awnings at the Pavilions.

Following page The street-facing Pavilions, with the Mews and Artisan apartments falling in behind. Commercial spaces fringe the building at the street.

Design notebook

Could you explain the creative thinking that went into deciding the final design.

The process was quite a collaborative one with three firms of architects, Willis Bond and history of the project. The reference design that was provided as part of the project was critiqued. In the bid phase, the question was raised about the building’s most appropriate relationship with the park – the default position was to put the tallest building at the park edge, but Mark McGuinness [of Willis Bond] asked the question of putting a lower-scale building adjacent to the park and a taller one behind it. This triggered the response that followed. From that simple question, the design response flowed – interesting outcomes can evolve from these group interactions.

Q&A with Patrick Clifford of Architectus

You say that the design offers the opportunity for the public to be part of the project. Could you please expand on this. There’s quite a bit of porosity to the ground plane and site organisation.

There’s the lane adjacent to the old Southern Spas [Mason Brothers] building,

there’s the street, mews and small lanes between buildings – we were able to make more opportunity for people to move through the site on the ground.

This seems to be quite appropriate to development that had happened previously on the site. The public, and public spaces, weren’t simply constrained by the primary streets – a greater degree of movement was allowed. In turn, that set up the opportunity for quite a lot of edges and the development of a range of retail and small-business spaces. Also, with the provision of good balconies, we hope that people will occupy them and that they become part of the character of the space.

With plantings they become an amenity to the apartments and street. We hope that the life of the building will be somewhat visible from the public domain.

What aspect of the development do you most enjoy? The richness and life that it brings to this part of the city. To see people enjoying and occupying this part of Auckland is a very rewarding and satisfying aspect.

1. Pavilion/commercial and retail 2. Laneway 3. Mews houses 4. Artisan apartments/parking

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Text: Simon Farrell-Green

Photography: Jackie Meiring This page Timber boards change size and direction as they wrap the house.

Inset The semi-enclosed staircase hangs within its timber encasement.

A sophisticated retreat by architecture + at Medlands Beach on Great Barrier Island rethinks conventional bach living.

Interior Motive Best Interior

Architect: architecture +

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Not so long ago, Stuart Gardyne spent a night at the house he designed on Great Barrier Island, only to discover that the neighbours use the place as a thoroughfare to reach other homes.

He got talking with them, and it quickly became apparent some are less than fond of their urbane, intellectual neighbour, with its hooded eyes and inward focus. They found it austere and closed.

“It doesn’t have the cottagey charm,” says Gardyne, of Wellington-based architecture +.

In fairness, the house isn’t closed, and it’s far from unwelcoming, though it does have an attractively monolithic look that might be perceived as imposing.

Set on a garden block down a long driveway, the grassy approach is deliberately informal. There isn’t a front door: a stroll across the lawn takes you to a deck and in through a sliding glass door, from where you look straight through the house and out the other side.

There is a sort of calm resolve to the house, which was designed for a New Zealand couple while they were based in Beijing, and their four children.

Rather than austerity or closure, there’s a sense of retreat and respite woven into the very skin of the house – early on, the owners expressed a desire for a courtyard house, not a beach house. It’s something of an intriguing brief for a coastal home – so often we expect them (and more so on Great Barrier Island) to be glorified tents, with openness and views from every room. “It was about having a house that’s more inward-focussed than outward,” says Gardyne. “That doesn’t imply disengagement with the landscape, but there’s an intimate engagement with the site.”

Ironically, the courtyard approach was ditched early on in the design process, although the idea of retreat and respite stayed. Planning regulations limited the footprint of the house to 15 percent of the site, which meant either building something very small, or something over two storeys. Gardyne’s response was to design a two-storey home set within a ‘pinwheel’ of four courtyards, each with its own covered outdoor space created by the bedrooms above. It’s a house of geometry and clever screening, where precise lines and volumes align to create a dynamic series of spaces with different aspects and uses – mornings on the eastern deck; afternoons facing north; cocktails on the western deck; and late-summer evenings on the northern deck. “The ground floor connects with different spaces depending on the weather, the time of day and number of people within a quite simple arrangement,” says Gardyne. “That simplicity allows a lot of flexibility with how it’s used.”

No matter where the wind blows and rain falls, there’s always shelter in the lee of the house.

Downstairs doors can be covered with sliding black cedar screens, and some upstairs windows have top-hung timber screens over them. Downstairs, tall, narrow solid-timber shutters sit in front of mosquito screens, allowing you to open and close the house in carefully calibrated ways, depending on the vagaries of the elements. “Often it’s beautiful and warm and humid, but you’re still affected by rain,” says Gardyne.

Left A shutter blinks against the building’s timber screen.

Opposite The approach to the house is almost suburban, but with an unconventional entry – there’s no front door, just a sliding door off a deck.

Below The entrance deck with a handrail and hooks for towels and coats.

Following page The cedar cladding is broken up with projecting windows, shutters and awnings. As the sun climbs, spaces that dwell beneath the eaves retreat into the building.

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There’s a loose informality to the rooms, rather than an overly programmed approach, an impression emphasised by the use of a single timber – American white ash – across the walls, floor and ceiling. Different uses are delineated only by the changing board size and their orientation; even the ‘KXN’ kitchen by Auckland-based designers IMO feels less like cabinetry and more like furniture. A curtain draws around the living area to create an extra sleeping place, and instead of cabinetry and fixed fittings, the owners’ lovely collection of classic, contemporary design pieces have been deployed around the house, which allows them to change arrangements at a moment’s notice.

“You can overdo the details,” says Gardyne, “have too many shapes and forms, and then anything out of place feels wrong.”

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“The materials aren’t seeking your attention – they’re a backdrop to the furniture and activity... The house is a background for life.”

Left The ‘Panton’ chairs in the living area are by Verner Panton for Vitra.

The ‘Sparondo’ table by Jakob Gebert for Nils Holger Moormann is from Katalog. ‘Above’ pendants

by Mads Odgård for Louis Poulsen from Cult hang above the dining table.

Right The semi-enclosed staircase loosely divides the dining and living areas. The ‘KXN’ kitchen

by IMO sits lightly beneath open rafters.

Below American white ash lines the interior.

The ‘Manta’ chairs are

by D’Urbino Lomazzi Studio for Bonacina.

The ‘Loft’ floor lamps by Michael Raasch for Steng Licht are from Katalog.

The ‘Liaison’ sofa is by Cameron Foggo for Nonn from Simon James Design. The rug is from Danskina.

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Upstairs, the same thinking applies. Gardyne noticed that the owners didn’t have what you might call a ‘master’ bedroom in their previous home. Instead, over time, they had occupied a series of similar-sized rooms in different ways. There are four bedrooms of the same size, each extending over the space below to create sheltered outdoor areas. They’re spare, even Spartan, and each has a brass clothes hanger, built-in drawers and a shelf for two suitcases, since most people arrive on the island by plane. There are two identical bathrooms. “I liked that,” says Gardyne, “and it was a big part of this design – it could be all the family in residence, or it could just be the owners, or the children with friends. We didn’t want bedrooms for any particular members of the family – whoever is there will choose a room that suits.”

Clever geometry extends to the exterior, where a cedar rainscreen is fitted over a waterproof plywood box, hiding unsightly flashings. Here, too, cedar boards change size and direction, sometimes extending beyond the building footprint. It was a direct response to a recent job where boards were programmed to fit perfectly across each elevation and around windows, only the builders hadn’t gone through with this plan.

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Above left A brass rail and hooks provide a simple but elegant storage solutions. Felt covers the face of the drawers, providing a change in texture to the timber.

Above An Anglepoise lamp sits on the floor in one of the four bedrooms.

Right The picture window views out to the southeastern hillside.

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Left and below left A window casement projects beyond the main body of the home.

The cedar rainscreen is fitted over a waterproof plywood box and hides flashings from sight.

Below Deck platforms appear as if they’ve been folded down from the sides of the house.

Each provides shelter at different times of the day.

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“We thought we’d just work out where they should start from and let them work their way across – a bit like ceramic tiles in a bathroom.”

It’s a house the neighbourhood will no doubt get used to; mainly thanks to its politeness. It’s not intended to be an object and it’s not a piece of sculpture, says Gardyne. “The materials aren’t seeking your attention – they’re a backdrop to the furniture and activity and what you’re doing in the space. The house is a background for life.”

Design journey Best Interior with Dulux Q&A with Stuart Gardyne of Architecture+

The project started as a ‘courtyard’ house but evolved – what was the key to unlocking the design? Enclosure can be achieved in many ways, as can connections to garden and outdoor spaces. The qualities of a courtyard can be achieved using planting and hedges; it’s not necessary to fully enclose with walls.

The plan is quite unprogrammed in some ways – has the family inhabited the house in ways you didn’t expect?

No two people will inhabit a house in the same way, so we like to design loose-fit rather than deterministic spaces. These spaces can adapt or change depending on who or how many people are there, the seasons, the weather, the time of day, and the occasion. We anticipate the family will use the house in many different ways during its life.

What was the thinking behind using timber across the whole interior? We wanted a very pale, neutral timber and we didn’t want a plethora of different timber

colours. Floors are ash with a natural oil and the walls and ceiling are ash oiled white. This became necessary as the variation in colour was greater than we expected. The Douglas Fir floor joists were oiled grey to knock back and disguise their natural pink colour.

What are the challenges of building on Great Barrier Island? It has a lot of rain, so we elected to scaffold and wrap the construction site to reduce downtime and keep the timber dry. Nevertheless, the ground did get muddy. All materials and one subcontractor came from the mainland. But we had a really capable contractor and subcontractors. The people are good and neighbours friendly and helpful. It’s hard to imagine a more enjoyable place to build.

How do you make people feel at home at the beach? Expect and accept that there will be sand on the floor, wet towels to be hung up, and easy access to the fridge is essential.

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Proud sponsor of the 2019 Best Interior award, inspiring the design journey from start to ďŹ nish.

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Text: Matt Philp

Photography: Simon Devitt This page Like a crack in a rock face, the entrance is cleaved into a corner of the home. Inset The concrete wall wraps like a protective cloak.

Vaughn McQuarrie draws on the bivouac tradition to design an enigmatic little house near Queenstown.

Base Camp Finalist

Architect: Vaughn McQuarrie

Below ‘Bivvy’ house overlooks Lake Wakatipu and across to the Remarkables, taking in mighty views and mighty weather.

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The first time architect Vaughn McQuarrie met his clients on site, they were about to leave on a 12-day back-country tramp, with no fixed route and plans to sleep rough “under logs and rocks”. The conceptual die was cast: a ‘Bivvy’ house.

As McQuarrie looked around the building platform, carved out of a sub-alpine, schist-heavy hillside above the Queenstown-Glenorchy Rd, he had a further thought. “We began to imagine the house was formed around large fragments left during the excavation – a rock bivvy, perhaps.”

Bivouacs by definition are insubstantial. By contrast, the house that McQuarrie designed for Australia-based Alan Luckie and Jen Arnold feels hewn by natural forces, all heft and raw elements. A series of stepping stones curve through scree towards an opening in the house’s angular concrete panels, then disappear into darkness. It’s less of a front entrance than a cleft in a rock face.

The owners have an unconventional partnership.

Arnold, an expat Southlander, practises in Sydney, Luckie, originally from the Waikato, lives and works in Victoria, where a few years ago he built a highly idiosyncratic house in Bethanga that won an Australian National Architecture sustainable architecture award.

They have a long-standing tradition of flying to Queenstown several times a year to hike in the backcountry or ski.

The Bethanga house clued in Waiheke Island-based McQuarrie to their mindset. “It showed that, as far as architecture goes, they were prepared to push the boat out.”

Above Different textures embed the house within its setting.

Right LED lights beam across plywood walls and spotlight on the concrete floor.

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Left A vestibule-like space awaits inside the home’s entrance. From there, a cut-out door leads into the kitchen, where Vaughn McQuarrie stands, and the living area.

Below left The Southland beech dining table by Vaughn McQuarrie was made by Darren Scott.

The ‘Tangerine’ dining chairs by Simon James are from Simon James Design. The ‘Gregg’ light is by Ludovica+Roberto Palomba for Foscarini.

Right The birch-ply kitchen has a beadblasted stainless-steel plate benchtop. The windows above bring in the low winter sun, which penetrates deep into the house and affords exceptional views up the face of the mountain.

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If there were constraints, they arose from the site, which looks south-east over Wakatipu to Walter and Cecil Peaks and The Remarkables, and is exposed to some brutal weather.

McQuarrie began by hammering a peg into the middle of the site and having a surveyor map all the key surrounding points, which – when combined with the winter sun path – gave rise to the irregular, fragmented building form. The monopitch roof follows the pre-excavation sloped contour, creating a highceiling design with heavy glazing at its northern end to draw in low-level winter sun, and a low and focused approach to the south, where the views are.

It’s only when you step down into the sunken living area, however, that you get the full, widescreen spectacle of bright lake and sharp mountains. Likewise in the main bedroom, the view is beautifully framed through a narrow pillar box window set at bed height.

“I didn’t want to do a house where everywhere you

go you get the same big lake and mountain view,” he says. As for the delayed reveal of the fabulous view in the living area, he was also playing with “the idea that you have to go to the cave’s mouth to see the openness”.

Throughout the house, McQuarrie doesn’t retreat for a moment from his animating concept. You enter the kitchen, for example, through a fissure-like slanted doorway. Concrete is tinted to the colour of schist, and during the curing process it developed a streaked patina that reads like surface water penetrating a crevice. A happy accident? “The whole idea of using concrete is that you can’t control it 100 percent. It will never be uniform, there’s always variation in the face, rather than something that’s machined to perfection.”

In the same vein, the timber elements are all roughly bandsawn, reminiscent of a tramping hut, but also of lined rock. “And like a seam in rock, I wanted the seams where each sheet meets in the ceiling to continue down the walls.” The vertical cedar cladding will grey off.

“We began to imagine the house was formed around large fragments left during the excavation – a rock bivvy, perhaps.”

Above The sunken lounge with sofas designed by McQuarrie.

The walls are solid concrete, which is tinted the colour of schist and developed a streaked patina during the curing process.

The fireplace is by Cheminees Philippe.

Right ‘Falcon’ chairs and foot stool by Sigurd Ressell for Vatne Mobler.

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In a couple of instances, the Southern Lakes geology has been assimilated into the home. In place of a coffee table, there’s a handsome schist boulder, and a smaller slab functions as a step into the Japanese bath in the en suite.

It’s a small house – just 112 metres – in a part of the country where the default setting is to go big.

“We were very anti having a large house,” says Jen Arnold. “Around the world, the impulse is to see what you can do in small spaces that reflect the environment and that have a smaller ecological footprint. We don’t need more.”

It doesn’t feel pinched. The high ceilings help, and there’s some clever use of space, such as a compact hidden laundry and inbuilt seating around the walls of the living area which provides a spillover sleeping option for extra guests. “It’s a bit like when you’re up the Matukituki Valley in one of those tramping huts, and people end up sleeping on the bench seating around the edge of the room,” says Luckie.

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Left McQuarrie designed the Southland beech bed, which was made by Darren Scott. The interior throws as many angles as the exterior.

Right The ‘Rituals’ light is by Ludovica+Roberto Palomba for Foscarini.

A custom-made folded galvanised steel plate holds the basin.

Below The stepping stone into the bath.

Following page Despite its petite form, the home is not lost within the majestic landscape.

McQuarrie and his clients were on the same page, too, in prioritising thermal efficiency. Hence all the high glazing to the north, which draws sun to the thermal mass. As well, internal concrete is kept thermally separate to the external panels. “The house is completely thermally broken,” says McQuarrie.

“There’s a continuous layer of insulation that wraps up the entire house, so there’s no cold bridging.”

It’s shelter from the storm, as per the elemental client brief. The other requests Arnold and Luckie made of their architect? Design us somewhere to sleep and eat, and which reflects its surroundings. They got their wish list – and something more. “When you’re here, you feel like you’re in an artwork,” says Arnold, in response to an observation about the absence of any adornment. “The house itself is the artwork.”

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Design notebook

How did clients from Australia come to approach an architect from Waiheke?

They found me on the internet, via another project I had done down south that they liked. We met up initially in Auckland to discuss the project, then on site in Queenstown. I’m from Southland, so I’m very familiar with the area, which helped.

Q&A with architect Vaughn McQuarrie

The design is quite unlike your previous work. I wouldn’t say it is different to my previous work in that it’s still a direct response to context and client brief.

It’s unlike my previous work only because this house is in a sub-alpine environment, whereas the others tend to be in a subtropical environment. You can’t compare houses in these different environments like for like.

The design and materials used were subject to review – what did this mean for your design? Due to planning restrictions, we were only allowed to use schist, cedar, render and glass. The roof also had to be metal and a certain colour.

It didn’t necessarily impact the design, it was just another parameter to work within. The key element was convincing the planners that coloured concrete was no different than a coloured render.

How do the owners use the house – is it a base for days-long walks or is it their encampment? It’s their encampment for sure.

There are few square angles in the house – how did you reach this decision?

The layout and subsequent angles of the house were driven by overlaying the winter sun path with the converging lines of the peaks and valleys we had surveyed.

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1. Entry 2. Kitchen 3. Dining 4. Living 5. En suite 6. Bedroom 7. Bathroom 8. Laundry 9. Garage

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has its own website (again)! Food Restaurants Cheap Eats Drinks Bars Cafes Arts Theatre Music Film TV Books Contemporary Art Society People Schools Business Politics Power Crime Auckland City Life Events Sport Property Urban Design Transport Travel Top 50 Bars Cafes Cheap Eats 50 Under $50 Wine Restaurant of the Year metromag.co.nz @metromagnz

Judges’ Journey

Below Lance Herbst and Simon Farrell-Green on their judging journey.

Judges’ Journey Home of the Year 2019

Judging Home of the Year is intense, of course – long days and early starts, a madcap dash around the country in a bewildering number of rental cars and planes. But as a way of seeing the country, visiting architecture can’t be beaten – from houses in the inner city to expansive rural retreats, you’re reminded of the sheer variety of both our landscapes and the buildings that we put in them.

Here, then, are our 2019 highlights.

ITINERARY

2019 JUDGES

Monday 18 February Queenstown

Gloria Cabral gabdearq.com

Tuesday 19 February Wellington

Lance and Nicola Herbst herbstarchitects.co.nz

Wednesday 20 February Wellington & Auckland

Simon Farrell-Green homemagazine.co.nz

Thursday 21 February Auckland Friday 22 February Great Barrier Island

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Below left Gloria Cabral takes a moment during the busy tour.

Below right The judging panel visited the Sir Ian Athfield compound in Khandallah, Wellington.

Judges’ Journey

With Simon Farrell-Green

Project

Bivvy Hut

Closeburn, Central Otago

Practice

Vaughn McQuarrie Architects Design

Vaughn McQuarrie

Finalist

We got a bit lost on the way to the Bivvy Hut, and ended up making a lovely detour to Moke Lake and Closeburn Station. The site of highcountry tussock and craggy hills were particularly affecting for our South American guests.

We finally arrived at Vaughn McQuarrie’s Bivvy Hut – a fractured, twisted house built from tilt-slab concrete that seems to rise from the very rocks the building site was hewn from. Inside, the theme continues,

with rough-sawn ply on the walls and oddly shaped door openings that force you to slow down and make your way through.

Conceived as a sort of glorified camping bivouac, it’s a delightfully stripped-back experience, with deliberately compressed and contained spaces. Rather than a widescreen panorama, the view opens up in moments. Complex and interesting: we loved it.

Judges’ comments

“With a fractured plan and multi-faceted elevations, this house strikes a delicate balance between utility and comfort, providing exactly what you need and nothing more.”

Project

Arrowtown House

Arrowtown, Central Otago

Practice

RTA Studio Design

Richard Naish and Mitchell Round

Best Retreat

It was one of those gloriously dry Central Otago afternoons: the hills were brown, the sun was yellow and the sky was blue. This made the arrival at the Arrowtown House by Richard Naish all the more spectacular – you approach on a long, gravel road and ascend the steps into quite a formal courtyard, around which are scattered five individual structures.

It’s an extraordinary house, clad in local schist and Corten steel, which references the history of mining in the

area. Through the brass front door is a concrete-and-glass portal linking two of the wings, while the guest bedrooms are reached outside and across the courtyard – a brave but wonderful call in this alpine climate.

It was the way the land flowed around the house that we loved best. Naish commissioned a topographic survey and then placed each wing very carefully on the land – sometimes it’s above you, sometimes below, and the feeling of connection is remarkable.

Judges’ comments

“An exceptional house comprised of five separate buildings grouped around an expansive courtyard.

Despite its size, the inhabitants are acutely aware of the land surrounding them.”

H O M E N E W ZE AL AN D

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Judges’ Journey

Project

X-Marks

Southgate, Wellington

Practice

Spacecraft Architects Design

Tim Gittos and Caro Robertson

Best Small Home

I’d like to think the presence of a three-week-old baby – Billie, who slept peacefully the whole time – didn’t influence the judges. But it was hard not to grin visiting the modest, clever little house of Grayson Gilmour and partner Holly Beals, designed by Caro Robertson and Tim Gittos.

Built on an impossible site – steep as all hell, with no road access – the design elegantly overcomes the slope, placing the upper storey on an angle over the lower to create

two sheltered outdoor living areas.

You approach down a long flight of steps and enter through a sliding door: it’s casual and intimate, with interesting, dynamic spaces.

At just 93 square metres, it was by far the smallest house we visited on the tour – yet it managed to cram two bedrooms and a recording studio upstairs, with small but functional living spaces downstairs. A clever and thoughtful solution to a very difficult site.

Judges’ comments

“A dynamic house on an incredibly steep site provides both interesting living areas and sheltered outdoor space. A clever plan packs a lot of living into a small space on a very tight budget.”

Project

Diagrid House

Grey Lynn, Auckland

Practice

Jack McKinney Architects Design

Jack McKinney

Winner and Best City Home

You can’t miss our Home of the Year 2019 – it’s two doors along from our 2016 winner, the home of architect Richard Naish. On a quiet street in Grey Lynn, Auckland, otherwise filled with pretty little villas, a clutch of contemporary houses both fit in and stand out thanks to a quirk in heritage planning rules.

Jack McKinney’s house for Cameron Ireland and family is something else, though, with its soaring ‘diagrid’ roof of raw concrete beams floating

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above the living spaces and extending outside. It’s a confident, even playful house – Ireland left the concrete raw, as it came out of the formwork, jubilantly showing off the means of its construction.

When we climbed the entry stairs and walked into the house, it felt both grand and casual, effortless and confident – a truly Auckland house, without being brash.

Judges’ comments

“A striking roof of in-situ concrete floats above expansive living areas, contrasting with polished steel.

A classically Auckland house designed around friends and family, with a sense of fun.”

Judges’ Journey

With Simon Farrell-Green

Project

Wynyard Central

Wynyard Central, Auckland

Practice

Architectus Design

Project team led

by Patrick Clifford

Best Multi-Unit

Architectus last featured in Home of the Year back in 1998, with a house designed for Patrick Clifford’s brother at Te Horo, on the Kapiti coast. It was a couple of years before the practice won the first Home of the Year, with Clifford’s seminal design in Remuera.

In the years since, the practice has transitioned to larger-scale projects – schools, master planning and now, multi-residential. But the thinking is the same: at Wynyard Central, we loved the thoughtful planning, the

generosity of space, use of materials and the creation of laneways between the three buildings.

It was blowing a gale the day we visited, yet on the covered decks it was still – you could imagine the doors open here year round. This is what apartment buildings in Auckland should look like.

Judges’ comments

“Apartments as they should be built, with covered decks and clever planning. Carefully massed over three separate buildings, a range of typologies and materials respond to micro-contexts across the site.”

Project

‘Pinwheel’ house

Great Barrier Island

Practice

architecture + Design

Stuart Gardyne, Michael Bennett, Darren Peachey

Best Interior

We flew to Great Barrier Island early, ahead of a tropical cyclone threatening to sweep over New Zealand, and stayed at Lance and Nicola’s iconic inside-out bach in the sand hills at Medlands Beach.

A short stroll away, the ‘Pinwheel’ house by Stuart Gardyne presented a very different – though no less appealing – sort of experience. Down a long driveway, the two-storey house is crisp and urbane, with planes and shields of aluminium and cedar.

Originally conceived as a courtyard house, the plan evolved to create four sheltered spaces on each side, with four equally sized bedrooms upstairs.

American ash runs across floors and walls, while the owners’ collection of classic contemporary furniture is both casual and crisp. A fine house.

Judges’ comments

“A careful play of geometry and space, with sheltered decks on four sides providing for a range of climactic conditions. Inside, a controlled palette forms a backdrop for collections of art and furniture.”

H O M E N E W ZE AL AN D

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1996

1997

Now considered an architectural classic, Patrick Clifford designed this Auckland home for his family.

Twin townhouses by Felicity Wallace overcome multiple challenges on a small urban site.

2002

2003

Stevens Lawson pays homage to New Zealand mid-century classics in this suburban dwelling.

Ken Crosson’s 120-square-metre Coromandel holiday home achieved outstanding simplicity.

2008

2009

The ‘Signal Box’ in Masterton by Melling Morse is a rational, yet poetic, design on a humble site.

A home on Waiheke Island

by Mitchell Stout stands strong and enigmatic.

2014

2015

Twin cabins on the Kaipara Harbour by Nat Cheshire of Cheshire Architects.

Richard Naish designed the ‘E-Type’ house for his family in Grey Lynn, Auckland.

History Never Repeats Home of the Year 1996-2019

Home of the Year is New Zealand’s most prestigious prize for residential architecture, providing a showcase of the nation’s finest new houses, as well as a benchmark for aspiring architects. As we celebrate this year’s award, we take a look at the past 24 winners.

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1998

1999

2000

2001

A Bay of Islands retreat by Pete Bossley of Bossley Architects was conceived as an encampment.

Gerrad Hall designed his own Auckland home – an economical model for urban living.

An elegant Northland retreat

by Fearon Hay is barely separated from the outdoors.

Gerald Parsonson’s own thoughtfully composed holiday retreat on the Kapiti Coast.

2004

2005

2006

2007

A Bay of Islands holiday retreat

by Pete Bossley won him his second Home of the Year award.

A King Country ‘tramping hut’

by Mitchell Stout places its owners in the landscape.

A Wellington house by Tennent Brown devises three linked sections to serve family life.

An Auckland family home by Stevens Lawson eschews right angles at a harbourside setting.

2010

2011

2012

2013

Stevens Lawson conceived a remarkable design for an outstanding setting near Wanaka.

A home by Michael O’Sullivan of Bull O’Sullivan at Karekare, west Auckland.

A holiday home at Piha, west Auckland, by Lance and Nicola Herbst of Herbst Architects.

A Waiheke Island home by Stevens Lawson respects its clifftop setting.

2016

2017

2018

2019

Herbst Architects designed this strikingly rusticated rural dwelling in Coromandel.

A family home in Cambridge town

by Christopher Beer wraps around a courtyard for privacy.

Herbst Architects takes a third Home of the Year award for this elevated design at Piha.

A family home in Auckland by Jack McKinney Architects pushes its heritage suburb boundaries.

H O M E N E W ZE AL AN D

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HOME + ALTHERM

DESIGN DIRECTIONS High-performing solutions from Altherm Window Systems are allowing architects and home owners to push design boundaries.

1— A dramatic custom glass roof featured in ‘Under Pōhutukawa’, our 2012 Home of the Year by Herbst Architects. 2— Dark cladding, dark joinery and thermally broken double glazed window units feature on this project by McAuliffe Stevens Architects near Wanaka.

1

As the finalist designs in Home of the Year show, New Zealand architects continue to push boundaries – Home of the Year 2019 saw six striking projects taking new directions and inspirations. It’s something Altherm Window Systems has been proud to support through its sponsorship of Home of the Year for the past decade.

But the brand also supports innovative design every day, working with architects to push design boundaries, at the same time as providing high-performing solutions for all seasons and climates.

Colour trends

You can hardly have missed the move to recessive cladding – homes increasingly blend in with New Zealand’s stunning natural landscape, often in shades of black or brown. Window joinery has followed suit, with a range of colours including black, brown and bronze, either in an

2

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3

4

5

anodised matte finish or one of a range of stunning powder-coated colours. Dark joinery blends in beautifully, creating an integrated overall look. Viewed from the inside, it recedes completely – discreetly framing but not dominating the view.

Indoor-outdoor flow

The boundaries between in and out have grown ever more porous, further blurred by developments including tracks that sit level with the floor and doors that push right back into or on the outside of walls.

And when they’re closed? Altherm’s APL Architectural Series allows sliding doors up to 2.7m high, further connecting you to the outside.

Cross-ventilation

Modern homes are now built to high standards, which means they’re air tight – meaning ventilation is important. Window

and door joinery is one way to achieve this. Contemporary louvres are both secure and sealed – particularly effective on warm summer nights. Opening over lights, especially above sliding doors, also help you to regulate the flow of fresh air, especially during the day when you’re out of the house. And roof lights can now be coupled with smart-home technology to regulate temperature automatically.

Comfort

It’s not all about air flow: retaining heat in winter is key, as is keeping it out in summer. Current building code requirements now mean double glazing is almost standard. Altherm’s ThermalHEART goes further, with a nylon ‘break’ stitched into the core of the windows and doors to prevent the transmission of the cold and heat through the metal. Result? A more comfortable home.

3— Roof lights drape light across living spaces both inside and outside a recent home in Northland

by Box™. (You can read more about this project at altherm.co.nz). 4— Black powder-coated picture windows recede into the cedar cladding at ‘Out of the Box’.

5— Entire walls of glass are elegantly broken up between sliding doors and over lights with discreet black aluminium joinery, at the ‘Torea’ house near Nelson by Tennent Brown Architects, a 2013 Home of the Year finalist.

H O M E N E W ZE AL AN D

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F I LT E R

171 Eva Rothschild Ahead of representing Ireland at the Venice Biennale, artist Eva Rothschild exhibits for the first time in New Zealand, at Wellington City Gallery.

172 In Conversation Meet Home of the Year 2019 winner Jack McKinney, who’ll discuss his designs over breakfast at Objectspace in Auckland.

174 Screen time The annual Resene Architecture & Design Film Festival returns with a stand-out line-up. Take a look at what you can expect to see from more than 20 films.

176 Be my guest Bill McKay celebrates the cultural diversity that has made our cities more interesting than they’ve ever been.

178 My Favourite Building Home of the Year judge Nicola Herbst lived in Auckland’s Axis building for seven years – she tells us why it’s a model for adaptive reuse.

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F I LT E R

ART

Calendar of Events

M AY

• In Conversation with Home of the Year winner Jack McKinney JUNE

Exhibition Eva Rothschild Text HOME and Robert Leonard, Curator City Gallery, Wellington

• June/July issue on sale • Design Awards call to entry J U LY

• Kitchen Day, Auckland AU G U ST

• Aug/Sept issue on sale • Design Awards winner and finalists announced SEPTEMBER

• HOME Tour Wellington O CTO B E R

• Oct/Nov issue on sale N OV E M B E R

• HOME Tour Auckland

Eva Rothschild grew up in Dublin, studied art in Belfast and now works in London, where she lives with her family. This year, Rothschild will represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale, with an exhibition of sculpture that follows on from pieces included in Kosmos, her first show in New Zealand, at Wellington’s City Gallery.

• Home of the Year call to entries D EC E M B E R

• Dec/Jan issue on sale • Home of the Year entries close F E B R UA RY

• February/March issue on sale • Home of the Year judging and international judge events M A RC H

• Home of the Year finalists announced

homemagazine.co.nz

Filter opener A renovation by Jack McKinney at ‘The Stables’ in Auckland.

For more information, turn to In Conversation, p.173, our hosted event with architect Jack McKinney.

Photograph by David Straight.

Kosmos 6 April – 28 July 2019 City Gallery Te Ngākau Civic Square, 101 Wakefield St, Wellington citygallery.org.nz

How did you become an artist? I always wanted to be an artist. I went to a Catholic girls’ school. Art was on the curriculum, but there was no proper teaching, no workshops, no making things. All we did was draw still lifes on sheets of A4 paper.

I went to art school in Dublin, then did my degree at the University of Ulster, Belfast.

Your work is said to be influenced by classical architecture, minimalism, politics, spirituality and power. How does power play out in your work? I don’t specifically seek out power as a subject but the physicality of the work points to the often arbitrary or archaic structures of power that surround us, particularly in an urban environment.

Conversely, how does spirituality play out? I’m interested in the transformative, the possibility of communication with something outside the self. I want that excess. I’m interested in spiritual modes of looking, and in the similarities between the desiring gaze that’s employed by people of faith and its secular application in how we look at art. I find the dissonance between the empirical physically present object and the subjective desires of the viewer fascinating.

In Kosmos, there’s a low concrete-block wall called ‘Border’ that you have to walk around. Tell us more. I’m interested in what I call ‘hazard architecture’. When I visited Melbourne last year, I was struck by the number of concrete barriers in public areas. There had been an attack, a guy driving down the pavement running over people. The blocks were placed to stop that happening again. The attack was a terrible outrage, but I was surprised at this excessive physical response. In London, we’ve had numerous events like this and there’s the history of Irish terrorism, so you get blocks in certain places but not to the same extent as in Melbourne. In the show, ‘Border’ creates a barrier. It makes people aware of their own bodies negotiating it, of the space it’s in.

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F I LT E R

In Conversation Jack McKinney AUCKLAND

Thursday 16 May, 8am Objectspace 13 Rose Road, Ponsonby

We’d love you to join us for coffee and pastries and a chat with Home of the Year 2019 winner, Jack McKinney. We’ll discuss his recent projects, including his award-winning ‘Diagrid’ house in Grey Lynn, Auckland.

Photography David Straight, Patrick Reynolds (Diagrid House)

McKinney’s work is marked by a dedication to rich materials, dynamic spaces and a constantly evolving design language. In his own house in Kingsland, he subverted the classic villa profile to create pyramid forms, pulling light into the living areas. For ‘Diagrid’ house, he designed a floating concrete roof with rough-cast beams. At Amano – the celebrated downtown eatery – he peeled back layers to expose the bones of a century-old warehouse that contrasts with luxe touches including a terrazzo floor.

Right A bungalow alteration in Herne Bay breaks out of its formerly closed end.

Below McKinney’s hand can be seen at Amano, the Auckland eatery housed in a century-old warehouse.

THE DETAILS Since forming his own practice in 2002 – first with Brian Windeatt, and more recently on his own – Auckland-based McKinney has worked across an intriguing mix of commercial, hospitality and residential projects.

Above This year’s Home of the Year references a few of architecture’s greats including John Lautner for his Sheats-Goldstein house in Los Angeles.

McKinney is known for his gentle approach and dry sense of humour – that’s possibly why he has several long-standing clients, including Cameron Ireland and Rachael Newnham, who built and live in ‘Diagrid’.

Opposite The architect designed the renovation of an apartment in a heritage building in Auckland.

TICKETS $20, include coffee and pastries on arrival. jackmckinney.eventbrite.co.nz

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FILM

Mies en Scene: Barcelona in Two Acts

2019 Resene Architecture & Design Film Festival With possibly the most compelling line-up to date, the annual Resene Architecture & Design Film Festival gives you every reason to hole up inside the cinema for its entire run.

The masters – Frank Lloyd Wright, Renzo Piano, Richard Neutra and Mies van der Rohe – get top billing, each with their own dedicated documentary coverage, while a catalogue of films from across the globe dig into solving a range of urgent, universal issues. Young architects in Ecuador show us how to Do More With Less; there’s an expose on a US futurist’s experimental city of the 60s; Dieter Rams points out that the “time of thoughtless design for thoughtless consumption is over”; and in time for its centennial, visionary concepts are explored in Bauhaus Spirit. And that’s just skimming the surface of more than 20 thought-provoking portraits and documentaries.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lily Reich designed the German Pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition and it went on to become a modernist classic – an icon. Its rigorous geometry in glass, steel and stone became one of the most influential and referenced works of architecture in history.

All this despite the pavilion only being officially used once and pulled down the following year. The symbol of a new, modern Germany was gone and WWII loomed. Anathema to Germany’s new regime, Van der Rohe – the last principal of the Bauhaus movement – began a new life in the US. Mies en Scene follows the journey of the pavilion’s resurrection in 1986 and subsequent opening to the public in Barcelona.

Experimental City

THE DETAILS Auckland 2 - 19 May

Havelock North 13 - 19 June

Wellington 23 May - 9 June

New Plymouth 20 - 26 June

Dunedin 13 - 23 June

For more information, visit: resene.co.nz/filmfestival

Christchurch 27 June - 10 July

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In 1962, American radical thinker and futurist cartoonist Dr Athelstan Spilhaus noted that America’s pride in wasteful consumption was “dangerously close to insanity”. He even said it “may be changing the earth’s climate”. His solution to mass-produced cities used the most advanced building technology, communication, transport, waste removal and city management.

In 1966, with newspaper publisher Otto Silha, he launched the Minnesota Experimental City project (MXC). Despite federal funding, political backing by the US vice president, civil rights leaders, a four-star general, designer-futurist Buckminster Fuller and a Harvard scientist, his prototype city was never realised.

Frank Lloyd Wright – The Man Who Built America

Q&A with Solano Benítez The Paraguayan architect on Do More With Less.

Welsh architect Jonathan Adams starts before the beginning of Frank Lloyd Wright’s life, back at his mother’s birthplace in Wales to highlight Unitarianism, the religion he believes shaped the master’s thinking. In pursuit of the true nature of Lloyd Wright’s genius, Adams explores how the architect’s buildings work, make us feel and the underlying philosophy of organic architecture they share. Adams does that by inviting the viewer inside a handful of Lloyd Wright’s masterpieces, including the Unity Temple in Illinois, Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, Johnson Wax headquarters in Wisconsin and New York’s Guggenheim. By shelving Lloyd Wright’s much-publicised personal turmoil, Adams takes a reverential look at an architect who aspired to create buildings that added “grace to the landscape, not a disgrace”.

Design Canada

Saying the most with the least is the essence of good design, says an innovative group of Canadian designers who, in Design Canada, apply their skills to unifying a nation. Through the lens of graphic design, this documentary follows the transformation of a colonial outpost into a vibrant, multicultural nation, with plenty of parallels that can be applied here in New Zealand – not least our recent flag debate, in which there wasn’t a single design voice on the selection panel.

Benítez recently visited New Zealand with Home of the Year 2019 international judge, Gloria Cabral, with whom he shares the architectural practice Gabinete de Arquitectura.

He opens and closes Do More With Less, in which journalist Katerina Kliwadenko and architect Mario Novas explore experimental projects in Ecuador that connect humanity with design.

The film dips into projects by young architects who introduce their practice to communities that have never known it and resolve pressing social issues with alternative economic dynamics.

Using labour exchanges, bartering and workshops, they build with minimal budgets that result in tactile, rough-hewn solutions. Their collective approach aims to resolve problems that all societies face – regardless of wealth – without waiting for politicians to catch up.

The architects in the film apply resourceful techniques to resolve residential and commercial projects. Is this a way for the future? The reason for our discipline is to contribute to the constitution of a better society, a scenario in which we have the opportunity to live better – there is no mandate outside of this collective framework of interest, at least if we don’t want trivialise our world. Of course, we must become jealous custodians of everything we value and although no one knows what the world will be like in the next few years, we have an obligation to design and build the one in which we wish to live.

You’ve recently returned to Paraguay from visiting New Zealand. How do you envisage New Zealanders doing more with less in residential design?

The best residence is the one that allows the best life, and this doesn't only have to do with square metres, materials, a certain contemporary aesthetic, or a certain cost of the work; the best residence allows

a better resident. Consequently, the best residence builds the best possible city as a collective stage of human habitation.

What are some of the residential issues your country faces and how can they be addressed through architecture? Selfish, petty people build poorly, which is expressed in cities and towns that prioritise the individual before society.

This in turn diminishes diversity and degenerates into meaningless places of empty consumerism.

Today we need to recognise ourselves in an expanded universe, where we are aware of exercising global relevance, with diversity that helps the sustainability of our species. As a higher desire, we must build together and towards a horizon of peace.

Are you working on any projects at the moment that Do More With Less? Architecture cannot be thought of outside this statement.

Architecture must not only achieve shelter for the individual but contribute to creating a society that will be relevant and desirable tomorrow. The commitment is always greater.

What can we learn from Do More With Less? A refined architecture is the one that most appropriately expresses its goals, reaffirming the purpose of its existence.

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BE MY GUEST

Table for all Bill McKay In the wake of the Christchurch tragedy, our guest columnist reflects on how food and immigration have improved our cities.

I was in Sandringham, Auckland, when we heard about the Christchurch killings. Twenty years ago, I would’ve been lucky to get a pie from a dairy for dinner. Now it’s a vibrant precinct of mostly Indian and Pakistani shops, restaurants and spice warehouses where I often get dinner or buy ingredients for my own inadequate attempts at a good curry. As an architecture lecturer, I often tell my students what Auckland city centre was like in the 1980s. After midday on Saturday there was nothing to eat until the White Lady burger cart appeared in the early evening. Our cities were stagnant and their centres were dead. As overseas visitors often said, New Zealand was closed evenings and weekends.

In recent years, we have experienced a startling transformation; our cities are much more cosmopolitan, rich and diverse. And immigration has been a significant contributor to that. Beyond Auckland’s centre, in suburbs such as Balmoral, Sandringham, Avondale, Mt Roskill, Mangere and Otara, there are precincts where you can encounter a range of cultures through school or community events or, in my particular case, a desire for good food.

I am a commentator on urban issues and people may be surprised when I talk about food as one of the fundamentals of a good city.

You might expect talk about buildings – how churches, synagogues, mosques and so on are landmarks that provide interesting architecture – or perhaps building-industry people. We can’t design and build the buildings or infrastructure we need without immigrants, from labourers and skilled tradespeople to engineers and architects. That’s not just people coming here yesterday: it’s the kids who came here young or were born here to recent immigrants – of which there are large numbers at our architecture school, who will emerge as designers with the aim of making this place better for all of us.

But I’m talking about food here because it’s fundamental for all people. Cities are conglomerations of buildings that facilitate the interactions of people and improve their amenity; whether it’s workplaces, accommodation, shops, places of learning or worship, streets to get around on and public spaces and parks to enjoy. And, especially, places to eat – sometimes on the run, but often on occasions where we come together with each other.

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Good cities aren’t just about highlights like the Sydney Opera House or Bilbao’s Guggenheim.

They are about making ordinary, everyday activities and interactions better and more enjoyable.

Immigration has been excellent in contributing to a richer experience for us all, with busier and better cities. The great cities of the world are cosmopolitan, heterogeneous, diverse and multilingual. Not homogeneous, uniform and closed on weekends.

Difference is good.

Some people may say that’s all very well but there are too many immigrants and some are so different from us. Well, now you know how Māori must have felt. As you enjoy your coffee or glass of wine, dumplings or sushi, spag bol or pizza, curry or kebab, consider how many of those were unknown to your grandparents. And consider how many of the cultures that have contributed those staples to your diet have been discriminated against in the history of New Zealand settlement and nation building. Because of the atrocity in Christchurch, few would have enjoyed St Patrick’s Day shortly after, but many of us like to think we have a little bit of Irish in us. During the 19th century, Irish immigrants experienced a great deal of prejudice, including here in New Zealand.

Most countries and societies have a bad habit of blaming the recent immigrants for anything.

When we look at daily life in our now-multicultural cities, our concerns about food, clothing, a decent place to live, good shops, a reliable car or public transport, a desire for work or learning, love for our families, concern for our communities – there is more in common than what divides us. We are all after a good life and something better for our kids.

“They are us”, our Prime Minister said. Or another way – we are them. Our land is a nation of immigrants, the last big land mass in the world to be settled. My family has been here since the 1840s, refugees from Scotland and Ireland, but in global terms that’s a blink of an eye in building a country, society or city. And someone who arrived yesterday is just as interested in a better life. I’ve seen the centre of Auckland blossom as a result of new ideas and new ways of doing things, brought here by people from somewhere else. I wish for more of that.

Douglas Lloyd Jenkins is currently on leave.

Right A series of images

by David Straight for Eat Here Now captures dining tables at Asian restaurants and cafes in Auckland.

Photography David Straight

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Photograph Jackie Meiring

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LAST WORD

My favourite building As a model of adaptive re-use, the Axis building in Parnell, Auckland, doesn’t get better, says architect and Home of the Year judge Nicola Herbst, who lived there for seven years.

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“The Axis building was converted

by Patterson Architects in 1991 from a Nestlé chocolate factory into a mixed-used development of offices, restaurants, showrooms and apartments on the top floor. As a model for what a city building can be, it doesn’t get better.

The mixed use means the fourstorey building is occupied 24/7.

During the day the offices, food and beverage and retail hum with activity.

During the later hours, the apartment dwellers and Cibo restaurant pick up pace to keep the building buzzing with life. It’s extremely communal, there’s always activity and you never feel alone or unsafe.

The building stock is heritage excellence. Its scale is elegant, fronting onto two roads with thick masonry

walls that create beautiful deep reveals.

The 90s refurbishment includes an insertion of bold steel elements – huge pivot entry gates and a steel pedestrian bridge that bisects the central courtyard. The signage is a beautifully considered cohesive part of these steel elements.

The full-height courtyard allows for light and cross ventilation into all the spaces, most of which have street frontage as well. The courtyard is grand enough in its dimensions to give a sense of privacy to the apartments that face into it.

So often, the adaptive re-use model produces the best buildings in a city and this one is no exception. I love the grandness and generosity of scale that’s applied equally to the common and leasable areas.”

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