Christchurch style, 30 years on

From our friends at NZ On Screen, this excerpt from David Mitchell's exemplary 1980s show about architecture, 'The Elegant Shed', examines 'Christchurch style' and is particularly interesting in a post-quake context. Enjoy.

 

Our new issue

It's time for our new issue - this time, our annual issue dedicated to art, taking you inside the homes of New Zealand artists and collectors all over the world. This issue will reach subscribers tomorrow and be on newsstands from Monday. The cover is a photograph by Emily Andrews of former Auckland art dealer Anna Bibby's amazing house in Martel, France. The photograph on the sideboard is by Australian artist Anne Zahalka.

Other highlights (and there are plenty!):

• We visit artist Martin Basher and TV producer Martha Jeffries in their apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn - as well as Martin's amazing studio in a nearby industrial building with views of Manhattan.
• Auckland art writer and curator Kriselle Baker shows us around her Auckland apartment and her terrific collection of New Zealand photography, including works by Fiona Pardington, Michael Parekowhai, Roberta Thornley, Mark Adams and many more.
• Shane Cotton and Luanne Bond's Manawatu family home, which Luanne designed.
• A mid-century Auckland classic by architect Maurice Patience now houses Andrew and Kate Thomas and their fascinating art collection.
• Artist James Kirkwood's daffy, adorable pagoda in his Titirangi back yard.
• Patrick Reynolds takes fantastic photographs of Auckland's new Fort Lane development.
• Katie Lockhart visits George Nakashima's beautiful studio in Pennsylvania.
• Paul McCredie photographs David Trubridge's new workplace and shop in Hawke's Bay.
• We've also got new architecture by Tennent + Brown Architects (in Northland) and McCoy & Wixon Architects (in Taieri Mouth).

And much more, of course...

Our new look

Those of you who haven't picked up our latest issue yet may not know that we've undergone a bit of a redesign, courtesy of the lovely team at Inhouse Design. We've put some of the opening spreads from the features in this issue below as a tease. The first is a story about the artist Andrew Barber, with photography taken at his Auckland studio by Jeremy Toth.

On the western shores of Lake Taupo is this bach, a former dental clinic sensitively adapted by architects Rick Pearson and Briar Green, and photographed by Simon Wilson.

Some people have been asking, what's the difference? Good point, as we have opened stories with two full-page images many times in the past. The difference on these pages is our new fonts, but in the body of the magazine we also have a new five-column grid (the underlying organisational structure for the layout), as well as different treatments of small devices like bylines and picture captions. Not enormous changes, and the intention was for it to be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary - so if you haven't noticed, that's OK!

From our archives: A hint of summer

Summer's on the way. This cover from our June 1958 issue shows Tibor Donner's magnificent Parnell Baths in Auckland in all their splendour soon after they won the NZ Institute of Architects Gold Medal. The nice thing is they look just as good today.

Outtakes: The Kare Kare house, our Home of the Year 2011 by Michael O'Sullivan

From the black sand of Kare Kare beach, the HOME New Zealand magazine Home of the Year 2011 is almost invisible. The house was designed by Michael O'Sullivan of Bull O'Sullivan Architects for Bob and Barbara Harvey. It's a pleasure for us to be able to show you some outtakes from Patrick Reynolds' beautiful shoot of the house here. In the shot below, you can just see the house nestled among the trees in the lower right-hand corner of the frame.

Inside, the house faces south towards the beach, but draws light in from a sheltered north-facing courtyard and from glass panels on the roof. The weatherboard ceiling appears to fragment and fall away as it nears the home's southern wall, giving way to the glass panels overhead. 

The ceiling tilts towards a band of windows that frame the view towards the beach into a horiztonal slot. Holes for lightbulb recesses are punched into the ceiling.

Outside in the courtyard, the ceiling plane appears to erode again to admit as much sunlight as possible into the space.

The main bedroom (the 129-square-metre house has two bedrooms in total) features orange carpet and windows wrapping the ceiling and wall at the northern end of the room. The door at left leads to the courtyard.

This view from outside the house is about all that can be seen of it from the road. It shows the main bedroom volume (clad in black bituminous roofing membrane) cantilevered over the carport.  



We'll post more outtakes of the finalists in the 2011 Home of the Year here on the blog in the coming days. Thanks again to our Home of the Year partner Altherm Window Systems for their ongoing support of New Zealand's richest architectural prize.

From our archives: Our worst cover ever?

A gem from our archives that shows our predecessors didn't do everything right. This is from the unfortunate period in the 1960s and 1970s when the cover of the magazine was pretty much put up for sale. Here, a model in a field (in a fetching outfit, we must admit) holds an aluminium door frame leading to ... where exactly? We're baffled, but have to admit we kinda love it too.



Home of the Year - our new promo reel

We announce the winner of our Home of the Year award on August 3 (with the magazine on shelves the next morning), but in the meantime, here's a little tease featuring all 10 shortlisted homes.

This year we've collaborated with the Gibson Group to produce short films of each of the shortlisted homes. We'll be posting the films here on the blog from August 4 as well.

Outtakes - Adam and Gaby Ellis' Wellington house

Our new issue is only just out, yet a number of people have already nominated Adam and Gaby Ellis' Wellington house, designed by Amelia Minty, as their favourite. (Like exemplary parents, we don't pick favourites as we love all the houses we publish in our pages equally). 

In any case, these early expressions of enthusiasm seemed like a good reason to publish some of Paul McCredie's lovely images that we couldn't squeeze into the magazine. Here are Gaby and Noa in the living area, with its great green views to the bush of the neighbouring hills in Houghton Bay:

Another view in the living area - this window offers a view south, with a peek at the sea. But mostly, the house is cleverly tucked onto its site with a hill to the south that shelters it from southerly winds.

You enter the home on the lower level, then climb the stairs in the photo below to reach the kitchen, dining and living space: 

This shot looks back down the stairs (at left) towards the entrance.

Outside, the house is remarkable for the way it connects with its verdant surrounds, partly thanks to Adam's landscaping expertise (he runs the Wellington landscape design firm Pollen, which has just outfitted Nikau Gallery Cafe with some swish new courtyard furniture).

Another key contributor to the home's success is the way cars are parked outside, requiring a short walk up to the house. Not so handy on a rainy day, but we think the approach to the house (designed by Adam and shown in the three images below) is so appealing that facing a bit of bad weather is a small price to pay: 

The image below shows the view looking down past the master bedroom and its deck to the deck outside the main living area, covered with a pergola.

This view of the house shows how Amelia designed it to step down the slope - a refreshing change to boring, bulldozed-flat sites, and one that makes the house much livelier as a result.

Our new cover

Our new cover (our April/May issue is our annual renovations special) features a photograph by Paul McCredie of a renovation designed by Max Herriot of Wellington's Herriot + Melhuish. We hope you like it.

The issue features four renovations as well as four other houses, including shoe designer Kathryn Wilson's Spanish Mission-style Auckland apartment, Adam and Gaby Ellis' Wellington home by Amelia Minty, artist Max Gimblett's New York home and studio, and Simon Carnachan's Queenstown retreat. It's on newsstands on Monday - subscribers should get their copies this weekend.

Outtakes - Martin Poppelwell

Artist Martin Poppelwell's Napier studio was designed by Wellington-based architect Ashley Cox, and features in our current issue. These are some outtakes from Paul McCredie's shoot there. It's a rare luxury for an artist to be able to have a purpose-built studio - and although Martin's studio is too economical to be anywhere near indulgent, the light, space and view to the garden feel luxurious indeed.

The studio is in the garden of the property Martin owns on Napier Hill, which is also occupied by his small cottage. You can see how the buildings relate to each other in the image below.

The studio steps down in three stages, which Martin divides into thinking, production and dispatch areas. 

Here's the artist himself, taking in some of the late-afternoon sun.

This image shows the studio's skylights poking up above the corrugated iron boundary fence.



And here's the studio at twilight, with the cottage on the left of this image.

We like: Selby

One of our favourite houses in our February/March issue is Selby, the 1973 gem just outside Havelock North designed by Miles Warren. It's pure class, from its park-like setting shown above right down to its signature foundation stone and exterior lights:

These are some more of the outtakes from Paul McCredie's excellent shoot, images that we couldn't fit into the magazine. Here's the entry court, which shows the drama of those sawn-off gabled forms.

This particular diagonal line (in the shot below) points to the main entrance.

Just inside the front door, a window reveals a smaller sitting room, set a few steps down from the home's main pavilion.

The main living room is a much more baronial affair, with lofty heart rimu ceilings supported by dramatic diagonal beams.

This shot (below) shows the swimming pool, as well as the pool house and garden tower. Both the latter structures were built some years after the home was completed - the tower, for example, was finished in 1993.

Selby's owners, John and Helen Foster, gave the house the garden is deserved, a beautiful, formal blend of manicured plants overlooking the tree-lined sheep paddock.

Here we are in the entry court again, with a shot that reveals how fully resolved every detail in the house is.

Incidentally, Selby is for sale (you can view the listing at the Bayleys website here). We normally avoid featuring properties for sale in our pages, for fear of becoming a real estate publication, but in Selby's case we made an exception because the house is so exceptional.

My Favourite Building: Futuna's 50th anniversary

Wellington art dealer Peter McLeavey's favourite building is featured in our current issue. Peter chose John Scott's masterpiece, Futuna Chapel, as his favourite - you can read why below. The photograph is by Paul McCredie.

"This enigmatic masterpiece has always held me," Peter writes. "For me it consists of two halves, the exterior and interior. The exterior evokes Maori civilisation and the cultures of the Pacific, while the interior reminds me of the beginnings of Christianity, the communities where the church began, the world of the desert fathers, the architecture of the Benedictine order and the Cistercians. The exterior is relatively unadorned where the form carries the aesthetic, while the beautifully orchestrated interior is embellished with the Stations of the Cross and glass designed by Jim Allen. Its reticence nourishes the spirit."

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS - THE PROGRAMME

Futuna Chapel, Friend Street, Karori, Wellington is the venue for all events. Seating capacity 100 persons. A marquee and extra chairs will be available for overfl ow. A small PA system will broadcast the Mass to the outside area. Public welcome to all events (preferential booking for architects at CPD events). Refreshments available for purchase. No parking on site please

FRIDAY 18TH MARCH

Powhiri and welcome (Th e powhiri will be outdoors weather permitting.)

Unveiling of restored plaques and gold medal

Music performance by Aroha Yates-Smith

Time: 5:00 to 7:30pm

SATURDAY 19TH MARCH

Mass celebrated by Archbishop John Dew

Time: 11:00am 12:30pm

ARCHITECTURE MODELLING SEMINAR / 15 CPD points

Cost: $15.00 NZIA members / $20.00 non NZIA members / Arch Students Free (limited spaces available)

Time: 2:00pm – 3:30pm

Participants: Plytech, Ponoko, Tony Richardson – Model Designer, architecture students

To Book: Th e Whiteboard Ltd / mail@thewhiteboard.co.nz / ph 04 4999550

FUTUNA: DESIGN RESEARCH SEMINAR / 20 CPD points

Cost: $20.00 NZIA members / $25.00 non NZIA members / Arch Students Free (limited spaces available)

Time: 4:00pm – 5:30pm

Participants: Amanda Yates Lecturer Massey University

Professor Dorita Hannah Massey University

Professor of Architecture Mike Austin UNITEC

Albert Refiti Senior Lecturer Spatial Design AUT

To Book: The Whiteboard Ltd / mail@thewhiteboard.co.nz / ph 04 4999550

The Dulux Futuna Lecture by Ric Leplastrier Architect (Australia) / 15 CPD points

Recipient of the Dreyer Foundation Prize 2009

http://www.ozetecture.org/oze_NEW_portfolio_richard.html

Cost: $25.00 NZIA members / $30.00 non NZIA members / $10.00 Arch Students (limited spaces available)

Time: 6:00pm to 7:30pm

To Book: The Whiteboard Ltd / mail@thewhiteboard.co.nz / ph 04 4999550

SUNDAY 20TH MARCH

Architects at Futuna / 25 CPD Points

Cost: $25.00 NZIA members / $30.00 non NZIA members / $10.00 Arch Students Free (limited spaces available)

Time: 9:30am registration and introductions, talks 10:00am to 1:00pm

Participants: Peter Beaven, Ian Athfield, Gerald Melling, David Mitchell, John Walsh (Communications Manager, NZIA)

To Book: The Whiteboard Ltd / mail@thewhiteboard.co.nz / ph 04 4999550

Public Open Day and Musical Performance

Cost: Koha

Time: 1:30pm to 4:30pm ( Music 2:00pm to 2:30pm)

Refreshments: Available for purchase Saturday and Sunday

Peter's selection of Futuna is timely, as the Futuna Trust is organising celebrations for the chapel's 50th anniversary in mid-March. Most importantly, the chapel will be open to the public on Sunday March 20, a terrific opportunity to see inside this fantastic structure. Here are the programme details (which are also available at http://www.futunatrust.org.nz/):

Outtakes - Godward Guthrie in Omaha

The home on the cover of our December/January issue by Julian Guthrie of Godward Guthrie Architects is an exercise in blurring boundaries between inside and out. While the whole idea of 'indoor outdoor' flow has become a titanic cliche, this is a house that makes it still seem like a noble aim. An array of screens, doors and glass panels can be configured to make the house feel connected to the beach no matter what the weather. Here's a view of the house from the beach, with the main living area on the upper floor. All the photographs are by Patrick Reynolds.


The home's living area opens onto terraces on its northern and western sides. An exterior staircase behind the screen in the picture above leads from the living area down to the lawn.

This view (below) from the street shows how the doors of the hallway can be opened onto the pool area (the hallway is also a very effective collector of solar heat in winter). At left on the upper floor is the terrace, which can be sheltered from the wind with moveable glass screens.

Below is a view from the sheltered pool area towards the beach. The rumpus room downstairs can be fully opened up to the weather, or closed down behind glass doors and cedar screens. In this photograph, it reads as a totally outdoor space.

Outtakes: A favourite recent house

One of our favourite houses we've recently featured in our pages is a 1954 gem in Hamilton by architect Peter Middleton. It was the city's first architect-designed modernist house, a brave experiment in open-plan living. Heather Lomas, who with her husband Alan, commissioned Middleton to design the house, still lives there, and can therefore attest to the longevity of his design. All these photographs were taken by Paul McCredie. Here, Heather opens the door separating the living room from the kitchen and dining area, a device Middleton created in order to separate children and adults when necessary.

An elegant stone fireplace separates the living area from the library, up a couple of steps.

The image below shows the cedar-lined bedroom with a view out to the garden, which runs down to Lake Rotoroa. The shot below that shows the view of the house from the garden.

And the image below shows Heather herself sitting outside her house. After we sent her a copy of the magazine with her home in it, she sent us a lovely letter. Our favourite quote: "Paul McCredie's ruthless elimination of much of the clutter in the house for the photographs certainly paid off - they are excellent". (We should add that Paul is indeed one of our most skilled declutterers). Heather added that she was sorry that Peter Middleton is no longer alive to enjoy the appreciation of this house. We agree, but we also think it's a testament to his talent that his work has dated so beautifully, as enjoyable now as it was when it was first designed.