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.

The great bach debate

When is a bach not a bach, but a holiday home?

This is a question we've often pondered here at the magazine. Whenever we think we know the answer - that a genuine bach is indisputably modest - we run into the fact that the common usage of the term has expanded, and that it is now used to describe getaway homes that have all the bells and whistles we'd expect to find in a city pad. (A reader wrote in to complain that our use of the word 'bach' on our December cover was an abuse of the term, as the homes in the magazine were not truly baches. We reply that in some cases, this reader probably has a point - hence this post).

This territory - the boundary between bach and holiday home - is something architects Lance and Nicola Herbst have been exploring for many years now, most recently in the bach that features on the cover of our current issue (and in the images accompanying this post, shot by Jackie Meiring). The fact that the bach is on Great Barrier Island helps, as all houses there are off the grid and subject to strict site coverage limits.

Nevertheless, Lance and Nicky's design is determindely a bach in the modest sense of the word: two bedrooms, an outdoor room, and a simple combined kitchen and living space. No frills, but beautifully and thoughtfully detailed.

What follows is our short Q+A with Lance and Nicola from our current issue, along with some outtakes from Jackie's shoot to give you more of a look around the bach. Please write in with your comments about the difference between baches and holiday homes, and if you think someone should take a stand to defend the 'proper' use of the term.

HOME New Zealand: What makes a great bach, as opposed to a beach home?

Lance Herbst: It’s not about deprivation, but about consciousness, that business of being aware of how much water and electricity you’re using, and filling your day with rituals – you have to cut the firewood and go out and get the fish for dinner. This building has been designed to achieve rustic ideals, but there’s an enormous amount of detail in it to get to this level. That’s because we believe in style and elegance as well. You don’t have to compromise your sense of aesthetics.

The main living space of this bach is really a covered deck, yet you also have a much more snug sitting area, too.

Lance: In baches, we try and make one warm, well-edged space for when the weather gets lashy.

Nicola: We wanted this to have an intimacy, so we decided that we would have a fairly low ceiling with exposed beams – that’s given it a richess and makes this space operate in a calming and more inward-looking way.

Your bach designs are well-known. Do you like doing bigger houses too?

Lance: I have no problem designing slick houses. It would be a lot of fun doing something really slick and sexy. It’s about context. There’s nothing wrong with that from an architectural perspective.

Our new cover

Our new cover is a photograph of a bach on Great Barrier Island by Herbst Architects, shot by Jackie Meiring. We like it a lot and hope you do too. The magazine is in stores from today.