We like: Wellington's Six Barrel Soda Co.

In our current issue, we visit Six Barrel Soda Co in Wellington's Dixon Street. The cafe was also designed to sell delicious soda made on the spot, in a space masterminded by Matt Smith of Wellington design firm Common. Here's Juliette Wanty's interview with Matt and some more of Russell Kleyn's photographs of one of our favourite new spots in the capital.

Designer Matt Smith of Common

HOME What was the brief for this job?

MATT SMITH We wanted to create a space that could function primarily for the production of soda syrups and secondly as a cafe. The existing space [the former home of Eva Dixon's cafe] had a history of failed cafes and restaurants. We first gutted the space, removing any trace of past ventures, and unified the seating and kitchen areas by removing all internal walls and running the cork-tile floor through the entire space. We also ran a peg rail the length of the space to display items, hold customers' coats and bags, and hang utensils and baskets of fruit in the kitchen. The large central table was positioned so that customers look down the length of the table to the kitchen. A quarter of the table is utilised as the service area, so that customers are engaged with the cocktail-like making and presentation of the sodas.

Customers are able to view the production process in action.

You designed [with Caspian Ievers] the logo and labelling system before embarking on the design of this space. How did you want the space to feel?

Soda bars first conjure up images of Americana, red vinyl, chrome and jukeboxes. We wanted to avoid this and focus on the freshness and quality of the ingredients, and the honesty of the production method. The colours are light and fresh yellow and green. We brought elements of the branding across, most notably Hugo Mathias' illustrations from the labels on the chalkboard wall, while avoiding creating a space that was too branded. The materials are good-quality and durable: cork, american ash and red brick. The almost-primary-school aesthetic of Six Barrel Soda Co - with its cork tiles, chalkboard, peg rail and stamps for labelling - is accidental, but often reminds people of their first encounter with sodas or 'pop'.

Labels are hung on the wooden peg rail that plays both a decorative and functional role in the space.

What has the response been like so far?

People seem to love it. It's been referred to as the most Instagram-able cafe in Wellington!

Six Barrel Soda Co Factory Cafe

Level 1, 33-35 Dixon Street, Wellington

www.sixbarrelsoda.co

See more of Matt Smith's work at
www.commongoods.co.nz

Prints work by Karen Walker

Fashion designer Karen Walker's latest move is into homeware, specifically a collaboration with the Australian department store Myer to produce a new range of homeware using popular prints. Here's our Q+A with Karen from our current issue, along with some extra images from her homeware range. A word of warning before you get too purchase-ready - while the towels are available in Karen Walker stores, the rest of the range is available only in Myer's Australian stores (and they don't sell online at the moment). 

Karen Walker

HOME You've already developed Karen Walker paint, jewellery and eyewear. Why homeware?

KAREN WALKER We've been interested in developing homeware for some time, and the opportunity came along to create a line in partnership with the right people [Australian department store Myer] at the right time. We've been working with Myer for years, and they approached us to bring our look into homeware.

The images on these mugs also feature in Karen Walker's jewellery collection

How did you choose which prints to use? 

After showing internationally for 20 seasons, we've built up quite an extensive archive of prints, which is where we looked first when creating graphics for bed linen, towels and so on. We made a selection of prints for each category and played around with color and sizing, then sampled what we liked and narrowed it down from there. There are many prints in our archive that we're constantly reworking and reissuing in different ways, whether it be fabric print, fine jewellery or eyewear. Much within our archive has become iconic for us and is reinvented again and again. Homeware gave us another area in which to explore this. We'll be creating new homeware ranges every six months, and they'll always have print and colour as their starting point.

 This range of beach towels will be available in Karen Walker's New Zealand boutiques from spring

When will New Zealand shoppers be able to get their hands on the goods?

The beach towels will be in Karen Walker stores here in spring. The rest of the range can be purchased at Myer's Australian stores from August.

The homeware range also includes these bed linens

The Roots in Otara

The Roots, a new event in Auckland's Otara, was set up by architectural graduates Waikare Komene (below left) and Martin Leung-Wai (below right) to foster architectural engagment from Maori and Pacific Island high-school students. The students created architectural installations at Otara's Town Centre using traditional lashing techniques and thousands of recycled plastic bottles.

We speak to the duo in our current issue, but we couldn't fit in as many of photographer David Straight's great images as we wanted to, we decided to feature some extra shots here, along with the interview with Waikare and Martin. Congratulations to both of them for setting up such a successful event - we look forward to next year's version!

HOME Why did you set up The Roots?

WAIKARE KOMENE The Roots was established through our passion to encourage young Maori and Pacific Island students to gain insight into architecture and think about pursuing it as a career. We held our first event recently, and want to develop it into an annual regional event.

MARTIN LEUNG-WAI We had 8000 plastic bottles and 32 students in the Otara Town Centre, and got the students to build structures out of bottles using the traditional techniques of weaving and lashing. The Roots is all about how knowing your roots or identity can help inform your architecture or any creative arts. We wanted the event to create community interaction and for the students to experience the design process.

 Above: One of the Otara installations, built by teams of students using traditional lashing techniques and recycled plastic bottles.

What got you guys interested in architecture in the first place?

MARTIN LEUNG-WAI Seeing prominent architecture projects in magazines and books in the Manukau Library attracted me. I was inspired by the works of Renzo Piano, Antoni Gaudi and Frank Gehry when I was in high school. From there I aimed to study architecture and travel to visit the buildings I saw in books and magazines.

WAIKARE KOMENE I became interested in architecture at Otahuhu College; as a youngster I really enjoyed the practicality and hands-on experience taught in workshop technology and graphics. I've always enjoyed sketching, drawing, designing and building - these skills have been a talent of mine.

Architecture is more likely to be associated with central city areas and wealthy suburbs instead of Otara, where you work. How are you hoping to change that?

WAIKARE KOMENE Otara is not only the place where we work, but also where we grew up and continue to live today. Otara produces amazing talent: athletes, rugby and league stars, rappers, artists, bands, the mayor of Auckland and now, through us, architects and designers. Architecture allows people to relate to the environment we live in and also take a sense of ownership and pride.

You can read more about Martin and Waikare's work on Martin's blog here and their firm Creative Native's website here.

Our new cover

Our new cover is a photograph by Emily Andrews of the home of fashion designer Rebecca Taylor and her husband Wayne Pate in New York City. You can read Sam Eichblatt's in-depth interview with Rebecca Taylor about this confidently eclectic home (as well as see more of Emily's beautiful photographs) in our new issue, on newsstands Monday August 6th! We hope you like it. 

This issue's content features:

• Karen Walker's new homeware line
• Fantastic new guest quarters at Cloudy Bay, designed by Tim Greer and Paul Rolfe
• A 1928 Arts & Crafts abode by James Chapman-Taylor, brought back to life by architect Andrew Bull and fashion designer Sandra Harden
• A clifftop home by Malcolm Taylor on an "almost too perfect" Auckland site
• Architect Marc Lithgow uses the footprint of an old brick garage for a compact, elegant new home in Auckland
• An innovative Z-shaped house by Glamuzina Paterson Architects
• A cleverly redesigned garden in New Plymouth by Michael Mansvelt of Plantation Design Studio
• and terrific stories by writers Jolisa Gracewood, Simon Devitt, Caroll Bucknell, Sam Eichblatt and others...

Meet the Designers at Corporate Culture

Auckland design fans, take note: Our friends at Corporate Culture are inviting HOME readers to a very special 'Meet the Designers' event next Wednesday 18 July from 6-8pm at the Corporate Culture showroom (73 The Strand, Parnell).

You'll ...hear designers Nathan Goldsworthy, Emma Hayes, Tim Webber and Christopher Johnson speak about their latest work. Emma and Tim were finalists in this year's HOME Design Awards, and Nathan has been a finalist on a number of occasions before. Entry to the talks is free.

Entry to the talks if free. If you're keen to attend, please RSVP to Christine Lawton, christine@corporateculture.co.nz. It's going to be an enjoyable and informative evening!

Above: The 'Adjutant' table by Nathan Goldsworthy, from our Design Awards 2011. Photograph by Toaki Okano, styling by Jessica Allen and Tanya Wong.

Designer Emma Hayes' 'River Print' fabric series (above) was a finalist in our 2012 Design Awards, as was Tim Webber's series of 'Y' stools (below). Both photographs by Toaki Okano, with styling by Juliette Wanty and Alicia Menzies. 

Outtakes: Waiheke Island holiday home

In our current issue, the Waiheke Island house by Fearon Hay Architects (photographed by Patrick Reynolds) creates a powerful paradox between a camping experience, with all the outdoors roughness it implies, and the luxurious elegance of a holiday home, to resolve it in a striking chef-d’oeuvre.

At first sight, to reach for tent and camping metaphors in an expensive holiday home seems to flirt with absurdity. But here, the house and the environment enhance themselves in beautiful contrasts. If you set the luxury trappings aside, there is still something fundamentally camp-like about the experience of being in the home. 

In the living pavilion, light flows freely through the space thanks to the fixed floor-to-ceiling panel windows that make up an entire wall. On the other side, glass doors open to blur the space with the lawn outside.

The pavilions are separated from each other, demanding a physical engagement with the outdoors – be it to feel the wind or get a little wet on your way to bed!

In the empty central space that makes for an outdoor gathering point, the home’s owners gather around a brazier in the evenings. “We thought, if you set up a camp here, this is where you’d put your fire” says Tim Hay of Fearon Hay Architects.

The encampment-like arrangement of the house was designed so it nestles into the topography. Says Tim: “There was a strong sense of a centre on the site, like a crater, and we didn’t want to disturb that.” That’s why they designed the pavilions to open inwards to the courtyard, the empty space at the heart of this remarkable home. On the other side of the courtyard is a living area containing a TV.

This bowl-like shape of the land surrounding the property is made clear in this view through the main living pavilion.

 

The encampment setting heightens the sense of luxury of having a roof on your head. Roughness and refinement merge into each other. In the ensuite bathroom, designed by Tim’s sister Penny of Penny Hay Interiors, white curtains run on a continuous track around the room, allowing it to be turned into a cocoon-like space.

An overhead skylight in the ensuite bathroom allows light to spill down the wall.

“We were keen that [the house] had an expression of materiality that wasn’t too perfect or polished,” Tim says, so they chose a roughcast plaster finish for the house nicely offset by the smooth sheen of the perforated metal screens.

This house ultimately gives you the feeling to be both surrounded by nature and still nestled in comfort.

From the courtyard, a small aperture between the bedrooms allows a glimpse of the view to the west, taking in Rangitoto and the waters of the Hauraki Gulf.

Outtakes: Home of the Year 2012

Every magazine shoot yields far more images than we can ever fit in our pages - so we like to take the opportunity to show you a few of our favourite outtakes here on the blog. This time, it's our Home of the Year 2012 by Herbst Architects, that marvellous structure amid a pohutukawa grove at Piha. The photographs are by Patrick Reynolds - and once again, a big thank you to our Home of the Year partners Altherm Window Systems for their support of the award. Thanks also to our intern, Jett Nichol, who's here for a week from Napier learning a bit about the magazine trade (as well as compiling these albums).

The image below shows the steps from the house out to the back deck, which catches the morning sun in summer. This opening also establishes a strong diagonal connection across the living space, as well as allowing cooling cross-breezes in summer.

In each bedroom, the walls have been lined in poplar ply, its light colour establishing a calm mood. This shot shows the main bedroom, which is entered via a mezzanine walkway above the living space.

The branch-like roof struts reinforce the relationship between the man-made structure and its natural surroundings, blurring the boundaries between the building and the tree canopy.

Inside, the tall timber wall (its cedar patterns mimicking the pattern of the bark outside) makes the living area undeniably cosy, despite the openness of space.

This view of the home shows the boardwalk drive platform leading to the carefully concealed single garage (which is under the main bedroom). The house was designed on piles positioned to avoid the pohutukawa roots on the site.

                                                                              

Our new cover

Our new cover is a photograph by Patrick Reynolds of architect Sir Miles Warren's amazing home and garden, Ohinetahi, on Banks Peninsula. The home was substantially damaged in the September 2010 Canterbury earthquake, but has now been rebuilt in a slightly different form. You can read Finlay Macdonald's in-depth interview with Sir Miles about his home and Christchurch's post-quake future in the magazine, on newsstands Monday June 4. 

Other exhilarating, beautiful, drool-worthy content in this issue includes:

• Our 2012 furniture and homeware Design Awards winner and finalists.
• Auckland architect Jack McKinney's remarkable villa transformation.
• A new Queenstown getaway by Pete Ritchie and Bronwen Kerr of Kerr Ritchie Architects.
• A major feature on architect Ian Athfield by Julia Gatley, coinciding with the upcoming launch of Julia's new book on Athfield Architects, as well as lavish coverage of Ath's remarkable, crumbling, inspiring Wellington home by Patrick Reynolds.
• New Zealand architect William Tozer's sleek, gritty design for a new apartment in an old London factory building. 
•  A fantastic encampment,style holiday home on Waiheke Island by Fearon Hay Architects.
• Much more, including interviews with Pete Bossley, Tanu Gago, Katie Lockhart, Martin Brown and others...

Fearon Hay wins chapel design competition

Fearon Hay Architects have won the much sought-after competition to design a chapel at Auckland's Holy Trinity Cathedral.

The firm's design features a glass-walled chapel with a canopy roof featuring mosaic artwork.

"This winning design, in its inherent simplicity and economy of means, provides a powerful starting point for achieving an inspiring, useful and ‘of its time’ Chapel," said David Sheppard, President-elect of the NZ Institute of Architects and the competition judging panel chair. "It promises to become a perfect complement to the great works of St Mary’s, Architect Towle’s Chancel, Dr Toy’s Nave and forecourt, and Jacky Bowring’s memorial gardens.”

It will be located at the south end of the Cathedral, where a "temporary" corrugated iron wall has stood for almost 40 years. Here are some of the images developed by Fearon Hay in their entry to the competition:

Our congratulations to Jeff Fearon and Tim Hay and the team at Fearon H`y Architects.

The design competition was run through the NZ Institute of Architects. The winning entry from chosen from a shortlist comprised of Athfield Architects, Architectus, and RTA Studio in collaboration with Bossley Architects. Work is expected to start next year.

An event ... you're invited

Later this month we're very excited to be hosting Wallpaper magazine creative director Meirion Pritchard and VII Photo Agency photographer Stefano De Luigi for a talk about the future of publishing at the Auckland Museum. Limited seats are available, so please RSVP as soon as you can to kstevens@acpmedia.co.nz to reserve your place. Details on the invitation below. We hope to see you there. 

 

Brian MacKay-Lyons on Nine to Noon

The international member of our Home of the Year 2012 jury, Canadian architect Brian MacKay-Lyons, had a fascinating chat to Kathryn Ryan on Radio New Zealand National's Nine to Noon this morning. You can listen to the interview here:

Lance Herbst on Radio New Zealand National

Lance Herbst, one-half of our Home of the Year-winning architects Herbst Architects, was interview by Chris Whitta on Radio New Zealand National's Nine to Noon show yesterday. Here's the link to the audio:



Later this week, listen out for our Home of the Year judge, Canadian architect Brian MacKay-Lyons, speaking to Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon, on Thursday April 12 at 11.20am.

Tell us your thoughts

Our research team is running a survey to ask what you like (or don't) about HOME. Filling it in online takes five minutes, and puts you in the draw to win Prada perfume and shopping vouchers. We'd appreciate your feedback. The survey link is here.

On film: last year's Home of the Year

For those of you who didn't see this the first time around, here's the short film we made to accompany the announcement of the Home of the Year 2011, a holiday home at Kare Kare Beach by Michael O'Sullivan of Bull O'Sullivan Architects. Yes, it's also on the west coast near Auckland, but you'll see this is a very different home to our 2012 winner. Where the home by Herbst Architects is, in parts, light and ethereal, this one has a low, compact solidity, a stealth-bomber sort of gruntiness.

The Resene Architecture and Design Film Festival

HOME is delighted to support the Resene Architecture and Design Film Festival, on at Rialto Cinemas in Newmarket, Auckland, from May 10-20. There are some terrific films in the lineup, so we highly recommend you browse Rialto's website and book your tickets here.

You can also check out our new issue for an interview with Murray Grigor, the director of Infinite Space, a documentary on the great Californian modernist John Lautner that's featuring in the festival. (Lautner's Marbrisa residence in Mexico is pictured above, photographed by Sara Sackner, Infinite Space's producer).

On film: Home of the Year 2012

Welcome to the Home of the Year 2012 by Herbst Architects, filmed by Jeremy Toth (with still photography by Patrick Reynolds) and edited by Dean Foster (clever Renaissance man Dean also composed the music). Congratulations to Lance and Nicola and all our award finalists. Our Home of the Year issue, featuring much more coverage of this home and our four fantastic finalists, is on newsstands from Monday April 2.

And the winner is...

We're delighted to announce that the winner of the Home of the Year 2012 is 'Under Pohutukawa,' a holiday home at Piha by Lance and Nicola Herbst of Herbst Architects. You can see images of this amazing home and the four incredible finalists in the award in our new issue, which will be on newsstands on Monday April 2.

The cover shot was taken by Patrick Reynolds, as was the image of the home below. We've also made a short web film of the home which we'll be uploading soon. Thanks again to our Home of the Year partner, Altherm Window Systems, for their ongoing support of the award.

Designer Jamie McLellan's short film

We're just about to call for entries to our annual furniture and homeware Design Awards, which means this short web film is timely. It shows two-time Design Awards winner Jamie McLellan discussing a range of his new works, including the 'Flyover' table that won our Design Awards 2010. Enjoy. The Design Awards call for entries is in our next issue, published on April 2, and heading to the printer today. Back to work!


Resident | Jamie McLellan from Special Problems on Vimeo.

Our five 2012 Home of the Year finalists

All the shoots of the finalists in our 2012 Home of the Year are now in and being laid out, so we wanted to share these sneak peeks of our five finalists in the award with you. You'll be able to see all five homes in our lavish Home of the Year 2012 issue, on newsstands April 2.

So, in no particular order: this little bach is by Ken Crosson of Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects, and is on Whangapoua Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula. The photo is by Jackie Meiring.

Another bach on the Coromandel Peninsula, this one at Onemana, a low-budget beauty designed and built by Dave Strachan of SGA Architects and Dave's students at the Unitec School of Architecture. If we were architecture students, we'd be stoked to have our first-ever creation named as a Home of the Year finalist. The photo is by Simon Devitt.

This home by Warren & Mahoney is on a beautiful peninsula just north of Tauranga. The photo is by Patrick Reynolds.

This home in an abundant garden near Wellington is by Alistair Luke, of Jasmax. The photo is by Paul McCredie.

Last but not least, this home at Piha is by Herbst Architects. The photo is by Patrick Reynolds.