A Life of Design

Jude asked me to write an article on design for this issue and then a monthly column. I assume as I’m a registered architect, she meant architectural design – and so I hope to amuse, and perhaps be informative, too.

I graduated from Auckland University in 1982 and have been working ever since, serving as a director at Avery & Leuschke architects, then Leuschke Group, and now Leuschke Kahn Architects Ltd. I’ve undertaken every type of building – except hospitals and schools – including a successful time as a commercial interior architect fitting out legal, accounting, and insurance firms in Auckland CBD.

Leuschke is a well-known name in architectural circles as two of my brothers, a sister-in-law and my nephew are architects.

People often ask if my father was an architect, but he was a butcher who spent many a weekend almost destroying a large wrap round veranda villa in Epsom, which we all grew up in. However, he did teach us houses are for living in. When Aunty finally left her husband, Dad installed a door in the hallway and a makeshift kitchen on the side veranda which meant she and the children had a place to stay. Not very architectural, but practical.

I’m a modernist, and pro-development, but respect good historic buildings, and live in a recently refurbished character villa. When I say refurbished, I mean rebuilt. The street image is villa, while the plan and back elevation is modern. We live quite differently from 100 years ago.

While I’ve been around for quite some time, architecture is known as an old man's sport; it takes a good length of time to know what you’re doing.

So, onto the topic.

Architectural design reflects how we live today.

Today we want to be outside, but under cover. First it was a sun umbrella or a pergola, then rain proof adjustable aluminium louvres, and now it’s covered porches. Not only out of the sun but out of the weather, the evenings’ wet dew point, and the summer showers. Add outdoor fires, built-in barbeques or outdoor kitchens, heaters, and music, and you have created an outdoor room. We like fresh air. We like the casualness of outdoor entertaining. Lighting is now low in height to give that resort feel. You can see where you’re going but can still see the night sky. No need to be blasted under a search light.

I’ve watched the old, enclosed kitchen get a small extension to become the family room. Dining rooms and lounge were still separate and formal. Then the layout morphed into open-plan kitchen, dining and living, the kitchen no longer locked away. The addition of soft-close drawer systems instead of cupboards meant you could still hear the TV without the kitchen noise. Family mess was relegated to a separated family room together with the TV, casual furniture, and family memorabilia. Now a scullery is required to hide the messy kitchen stuff away from the show kitchen. We now have coffee machines, food processors, rice cookers, wine fridges, slow cookers, and dirty dishes which all need to be hidden. A separate cooking area in the scullery keeps cooking smells out of the open-plan living area – a must for more fragrant cuisines!

While the anti-car council frowns on two-car garages, they’re even more important today as places to charge the Tesla or store the electric bikes. And have you noticed cars are getting bigger? So garages must also.

paul@leuschkekahn.co.nz

021 894 895