New Home Design

Our new cover is on newsstands today - the beautifully crafted home on it is by Michael O'Sullivan, the photograph is by Emily Andrews, and the shot was styled by Yvette Jay. 

 Inside the issue is an abundance of great stuff, including homes by Wellington's Tennent + Brown Architects, Atelierworkshop, Christchurch's Wilson & Hill and Auckland's Andrew Patterson, as well as our former art director Miranda Dempster's New York apartment and a beautiful cabin built by expat New Zealander Adrian van Schie in New York State's Adirondacks Mountains. 

Also! We present our biannual bathroom design focus, travel to six chic global destinations, design writer Douglas Lloyd Jenkins tells a tale of the rebirth of a sleek mid-century hotel in Putaruru, we feature Kate Sylvester and Douglas + Bec's new furniture range, and much more.

NZ's Architecture van Brandenburg in China

In our current issue, we feature the remarkable story of architect Fred van Brandenburg and his son Damien of Architecture van Brandenburg, who are designing the new Shenzhen headquarters of Marisfrolg, one of China's biggest fashion labels. Below is a shot of the first stage of the building under construction. (It's expected to be completed in three years).

The inspiration for the building's organic forms come from none other than the late Antoni Gaudi, designer of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia cathedral. Fred, who has designed luxury lodges including Huka Lodge and Wharekauhau, decided after seeing Gaudi's buildings that he wanted to make a complete change in the way he designed buildings. "I decided I was going to do sculptural architecture by adapting philosophies [Gaudi] espoused and applying them to contemporary architecture," he says.

Above: An image from a recent advertising campaign by Marisfrolg, using the headquarters' partially completed structure as a backdrop.

The Marisfrolg headquarters job came about after the company's owners visited Fred's office in Lake Hayes, Central Otago, after staying in some of his lodge designs. He told them he was no longer interested in designing that type of building, and they said they would be in touch. About a year and a half later they did so, asking him to come and see their site in Shenzhen in southern China. Fred couldn't remember them, but their seriousness and the scale of the project got his attention: 75,000 square metres, including a catwalk and function area for launching collections, design offices, manufacturing and warehousing and a 50-room boutique hotel for the label's clients. Through their intepreter, Marisfrolg's owners asked for the building to be soaring but unostentatious. "I then realised this was going to be big" said Fred. The final direction was "Design first, budget second."

 

Above and below: Conceptual models of the Marisfrolg building, inspired by Fred's newfound love of organic forms.

As part of their (very loose) brief, Marisfrolg's owners showed Fred a video of a recent Marisfrolg collection with images of birds in flight and autumnal scenes. "I explained that I was inspired by forms found in nature and it all gelled very quickly," Fred says. Damien had just graduated in architecture from Auckland's Unitec, and moved to Dunedin to work on the project full-time (the duo set up an office there because of its proximity to the "brains trust" of 3D-modelling experts at Otago Polytechnic).

Above: More views of models of the complex in Architecture van Brandenburg's Dunedin office, 
the two colour images photographed by Graham Warman. Damien van Brandenburg is in the shot above.

Fred and Damien have never been told the budget of the project, but nor have their clients ever wavered in their commitment to fulfilling their architect's vision. They're already talking about potential projects with other Chinese developers, but for the moment, Fred says the main focus is on successfully completing the Marisfrolg headquarters. "There are people who are interested in us in China but you can imagine they're reticent and seeing how things pan out [with this project] he says. Once it is, you can easily imagine plenty more attention coming the van Brandenburgs' way.

Outtakes: The Onemana Bach by SGA Architects and Unitec students

Our current issue features a short Q+A with architect Dave Strachan of SGA Architects, talking to him about his work with students at Unitec to design and build social housing in collaboration with Auckland's VisionWest.

This isn't the first time Dave and his students have worked together to build something remarkable - last year he and his team designed and built a thrifty bach at Onemana Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula that was a finalist in our 2012 Home of the Year award. (These photographs are by Simon Devitt).

Dave and his students at Auckland’s Unitec School of Architecture were assisted on this project by architect Marshall Cook and builder John Cocks. As a result, all of these students can claim they will leave university with real-world architectural experience: as well as collaborating on the design of the bach, they built it at the Unitec campus before it was trucked to its site on the Coromandel Peninsula.

This is a good point at which to add contdxt to Dave’s remark in our original article accompanying the Home of the Year issue. In it, we quoted Dave as making an unflattering remark about architects in general, but what he was really trying to say was that there is a perception that architects are regarded this way, and that the way students work with tradespeople in this exercise helps to close the gap between architects and the professionals they collaborate with. Our apologies to Dave for allowing this remark to run in the magazine in a way that made it seem like he was slagging off his own profession, when in reality he holds architects and architecture in the highest esteem. 

 

Above: Andrew Morrison relaxes on the deck in a cane-swing chair while Shiree and their daughters Rubie and Billie hang 

out in the kitchen. Morgan Cronin from Cronin Kitchens advised the students on building the cabinetry.

Above: The living room opens out to decks on both sides. Former Unitec student 
Tim Webber designed the table to match the Morrisons' Ikea chairs.

Part of Dave’s mission in leading this project at Unitec is to encourage productive working relationships and good communication between these students when they graduate and the tradespeople they will work with on future architectural projects. Building the bach was a vital part of this process. The students, Dave says, might say, “oh, we just want a nice flat floor to go through there – well that’s wonderful, but how the hell do you do that, to document it and then build it? That makes it a useful part of architectural education”.

Dave was a builder before he became an architect and has the deepest of respect for both professions, as well as a keen awareness of how poor detailing and communication can compromise a project. “Design is what [students] are taught to do,” Dave says. “It’s what most schools of architecture focus on. But a lot of design decisions are made during documentation – everyone thinks it’s the boring bit, but really it’s very much about trying to keep the integrity of the design idea you had at the start.”

Above: The ultimate in indoor/outdoor flow: a floor that continues almost seamlessly from the kitchen out to the deck. 
The deck chairs, covered by Shiree, are from Nest.

Above: A view of the dining area opening onto the second deck. In the background, the barbecue from 
The BBQ Factory echoes the strobe-like effect from the slatted roof.

Above: The barbecue deck is also the perfect place to relax in front of a little fire and watch the starry sky after sunset.

Above: Billie and Rubie playing in the living area with the windows panels drawn back to enjoy the sun. 
Below: Dave and some of the members of Studio 19, his student design team.

Outtakes: Pahoia house by Warren and Mahoney

Our April/May issue Home of the Year issue featured this finalist in the award, a magnificent home near Tauranga designed by Andrew Barclay and Richard McGowan of Warren & Mahoney.The home is a linear ground-floor arrangement of bedrooms and living areas, with a black main bedroom suite and study on the black upper floor, which is placed transversely to the main volume of the house. In the shot below (all the photographs are by Patrick Reynolds), you can see the house on its beautiful peninsula site.

The home's owners asked Andrew and Richard for a home with sculptural lines, a sense of restfulness, and a focus on quality and permanence. The house was to be "simple and strong and bold" for a life of "reading, privacy and quietness." The two shots below show more clearly the relationship of the upper and lower volumes of the home, with the upper floor projecting over and providing shade for a lower-level terrace.

All the home's main spaces face north, including the outdoor room (shown below), which features a reflecting pool with a large sculpture by Paul Dibble. It's the beautiful outcome of the owners' desire to emulate the European concept of entering a courtyard before moving into the house proper. It's also a way of encouraging sheltered outdoor living by dissolving the barriers between indoors and out. Visitors pass under the bridge-like form of the home's upper floor before walking through the front door, which opens directly into the outdoor room.

The outdoor room is anchored, like the rest of the house, by a wall of travertine that acts as the building's spine (below).

The view below looks back from the outdoor room to the home's main entrance, featuring another sculpture by Paul Dibble across the driveway. 

The owners wanted the home to feel equally comfortable when their six children were around or when just the two of them were home. The main living area, entered from the outdoor room, is an intimate open-plan sequence of sunny sitting area, a kitchen and dining space and a compact formal sitting room with a fireplace.

When the (mostly adult) children are visiting, they have the home's west wing, with three bedrooms and a small living room. At the eastern end of the ground floor is a separate guest suite featuring this elegant ensuite bathroom.

Upstairs, a dark-painted library located behind the main bedroom makes for a comfortable winter evening retreat.

The view below is from the guest suite on the ground floor, a lovely perspective looking north over the estuary. Thanks again to our Home of the Year partner, Altherm Window Systems, for working with us to present these fantastic homes.

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.

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.

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.

Home of the Year hall of fame

As we hurtle towards sending our Home of the Year 2012 issue to press, we thought it was a good time to review the previous winners of the award, which is now in its 17th year. So here they are - we'd like to live in all of them.

(This year's Home of the Year winner will be revealed in our new issue, on newsstands April 2. Thanks again to our Home of the Year partner, Altherm Window Systems, for their ongoing support of the award.)

First, our 1996 winner: in Auckland, by Patrick Clifford and his colleagues at Architectus. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.

Our 1997 winner, also in Auckland, was designed by Felicity Wallace. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.

This house in the Bay of Islands by Pete Bossley won Home of the Year in 1998. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.

Back in Auckland, architect Gerrad Hall's own home won the award in 1999. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.

Fearon Hay Architects took the prize for this Bay of Islands holiday home in 2000. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.

Architect Gerald Parsonson's own family bach on the Kapiti Coast was our 2001 winner. Photograph by Paul McCredie.

Stevens Lawson Architects won the first of their three Home of the Year titles for this Auckland home in 2002. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.

Architect Ken Crosson's bach on the Coromandel Peninsula won the Home of the Year 2003 award, as well as the Home of the Decade prize (held to mark 10 years of the Home of the Year award) in 2005. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.

The Home of the Year 2004 was this Bay of Islands holiday home by Pete Bossley. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.

This house in the King Country by Mitchell & Stout was named Home of the Year 2005.  Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.

The Home of the Year 2006 in Day's Bay, Wellington, was designed by Hugh Tennent. Photograph by Paul McCredie.

This Auckland house by Stevens Lawson Architects was our 2007 Home of the Year. Photograph by Mark Smith.

The 'Signal Box' in Masterton, designed by Melling Morse Architects, was our 2008 winner. Photograph by Paul McCredie.

Mitchell and Stout Architects' Waiheke house was the 2009 Home of the Year. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.

Our only South Island winner to date, the 2010 Home of the Year is near Wanaka and was designed by Stevens Lawson Architects. Photograph by Mark Smith.

 

Last year's Home of the Year was the Kare Kare house, designed by Michael O'Sullivan of Bull O'Sullivan Architects.