World Architecture Festival - the NZ finalists

New Zealand architects have made a fantastically strong showing in the shortlist of nominees for awards at the World Architecture Festival.

First, with an impressive three nominations (and one shared one) are these projects from Fearon Hay Architects: The Brancott Estate Heritage Centre in Marlborough (below), shortlisted in the  'Display' category of the festival and featured in our December/January 2012 issue. The photo below is by Patrick Reynolds.

 

Fearon Hay's Imperial Lane project in Auckland (below), featured in our February/March issue, picked up a nomination in the festival's 'Old and New' category. Photo by Patrick Reynolds.

Jeff Fearon and Tim Hay are going to have a very busy time of it when they present shortlisted projects to the judges at the festival in Singapore in October: their Island Retreat (below), featured in our current issue, has been shortlisted in the 'Villa' category of the awards. 

And the firm was also nominated in the urban design category, along with Taylor Cullity Lethlean of Melbourne, for their excellent work at Auckland's North Wharf (below). Both photos by Patrick Reynolds.

   

In non-Fearon Hay nominations, Ken Crosson of Crosson Clarke Carnachan's Hut on Sleds at Whangapoua Beach (below), a finalist in our Home of the Year award 2012, is shortlisted in the festival's 'Villa' category. Photo by Jackie Meiring. 

Patterson Associates' Geyser building (below) on Auckland's Parnell Road is nominated in the festival's 'Office' category. 

As we mentioned earlier in the week, RTA Studio's C3 house (below, which is planned, but not yet built) has picked up a nomination in the 'Future Projects' section.

Also in 'Future Projects' a planned Waikato Whanau Ora centre (below) by Hamish Monk, Aaron Paterson and Dominic Glamuzina of The Flood.

All the finalists will travel to the World Architecture Festival in Singapore in October to give presentations about their work to a panel of judges. We wish them luck, and congratulate them on their success in getting this far. 

The full World Architecture Festival shortlist is here.

And the finalists are...

Brian MacKay-Lyons and his wife Marilyn are on the plane back to Canada, and the Home of the Year judges have made their decisions. So, we're very pleased to annouce the finalists in our Home of the Year award 2012.

The winner will be announced at a cocktail function in Auckland on March 29, and the results published in our April/May issue, which is on sale from April 2.

In the meantime, we're busy getting our five very exciting finalists photographed to feature in our Home of the Year issue. (For those of you who can't wait, you can see amateur pics from our judging trip on our Facebook page or Twitter feed - just click on the Twitter box on the right-hand side of this page).

Anyway, the five finalists in the award (in no particular order) are:

• A home near Wellington by Jasmax
• A home at Pahoia, near Tauranga, by Warren & Mahoney
• A holiday home at Piha by Herbst Architects
• A bach at Onemana on the Coromandel Peninsula by Strachan Group Architects in conjunction with Unitec students
• A bach at Whangapoua on the Coromandel Peninsula by Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects.

We're really looking forward to publishing our Home of the Year issue and showing you how good these five homes are. Thanks to our Home of the Year partner Altherm Window Systems for making this all possible.

World Architecture Festival

Exciting news - two homes that have previously featured in our pages have been shortlisted for awards at the World Architecture Festival, to be held in Barcelona in November. One of those houses is Te Kaitaka - the Lake Wanaka retreat by Stevens Lawson Architects, which won our Home of the Year award this year:


You can see some of photographer Mark Smith's shots of the house at an earlier post here: http://homenewzealand.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-shots-of-our-winning-house.html

The other house to be shortlisted at the World Architecture Festival is a holiday home on Great Barrier Island by Paul Clarke of Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects, which we featured in our December/January issue last year:

You can see more of Simon Devitt's shoot of the house by Paul Clarke at an earlier post here: http://homenewzealand.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-outtakes.html

All the architects are going to Barcelona in November to make presentations about their buildings to the judges.

Congratulations are also due to New Zealand firms that have been shortlisted in other categories. They include Warren & Mahoney, who are shortlisted in the Civic & Community section of the festival for their design of the Supreme Court in Wellington, Auckland's RTA Studio, who are shortlisted in the Learning category for the AUT lecture theatres and conference centre they designed, and Copeland Associates Architects for their design of the Northland Event Centre.

Good luck to everyone involved - and have a great time in Barcelona.

More outtakes

More outtakes from our current issue: this time, the house on Great Barrier Island designed by Paul Clarke of Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects. The photographs are by Simon Devitt.

This one shows the house's open-air (but covered) corridor. On the left is a storage cupboard, a small laundry alcove, and a toilet. The bedrooms are on the right, with the main living area at the end of the corridor. The open-air corridor may make for a slightly chilly trip to the bathroom in winter, but Paul believes that it's important to remain connected to the elements at a holiday home, something the owners heartily agree with.

This arresting view looks along the home's eastern flank, showing its cedar exoskeleton.

Here's a view of it in its bush-clad setting, in a field a little back from Medlands Beach. This is like the view you get of the house when you approach - it's an intriguing object from the driveway, with its monopitch roof pointing optimistically skywards.

Paul Clarke wished we had included this shot in our layout, so I've put it here for him. He likes the way the home's exoskeleton mimics the verticality of the trees.

And this is another view through the home's deck and living area.

Outtakes

It's outtakes time again - this time we've selected extra shots of the house designed by Ken Crosson and Carolyn Gundy of Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects on the Kaipara Harbour that features in our October/November 2009 issue. It's never possible to show every aspect of a house without a magazine layout feeling repetitious - what we hope to convey is a sense of the essence of a house, and also to make our readers feel as if they've had a good look around. This house is big and made of many complex parts, so I think it's useful for us to show a few extra of Patrick Reynolds' images here.

This one shows the exterior as you arrive at the home and look towards the harbour. On this elevation of the house, the copper walls are windowless and impassive, lined with nikau palms.


Here's a view of the home's main living pavilion, sheltered from westerly winds by the hills behind.

In contrast to the huge volume of the main living area - which Ken likens to the inside of an upturned galleon - the bedrooms have lower ceilings and are more intimate, cosy spaces, although still lined in the same ply as the rest of the home. The headboard is made from macrocarpa and was designed by the architects.

This particularly good-looking shot - which it gave us great pains to leave out of our magazine layout - is a view from the deck outside the living pavilion, looking north to the master bedroom suite.