Under threat: The Lomas house, Hamilton

Hamiltonians, contact your city councillors! TVNZ is reporting that a 1955 Hamilton home designed by Peter Middleton (that we featured in our October/November 2010 issue) is under threat of demolition.

Paul McCredie did a beautiful job of photographing the building for us (Linda Tyler wrote about the house). It's in a lush garden that the late Heather Lomas, the home's owner, spent decades creating. 

The home won an Enduring Architecture Award from the New Zealand Institute of Architects earlier this year. Middleton was commissioned to design the house by Heather Lomas and her husband Alan. Heather (below) lived in the house until her death in March. The house was later sold to a neighbour by members of Heather's family.

According to the TVNZ report, Waikato heritage consultant Ann McEwan "has called for the Lomas house on Lake Cres to be saved, and wants the Hamilton City Council to bend its district plan to save the 1950s building from demolition." You can read the TVNZ story here.   

It's a vexed issue, this. The new owner of the house is, legally, perfectly entitled to demolish it. The Lomas house, like many great modernist buildings, falls into an unprotected grey zone, where these structures are often not considered worthy of heritage protection until it's too late. 

Apart from the fact that we really like it, the Lomas house has genuine historical merit.  It is believed to be Hamilton's first architecturally designed house, and represented a brave early experiment in open-plan living. 

In its citation for the home's Enduring Architecture award, the NZ Institute of Architects said: 

The Lomas House is a fine building and also an inspiring architectural story. Designed for a young family in the 1950s, at a time when materials were rationed but optimism was far more plentiful, the house has gracefully kept pace with that family’s life for more than half a century. Frugal, but never mean with its spatial allocation, the house on its well-positioned site is cleverly and subtly arranged around the framework of a simple grid. Over the years, it has settled into a companionate relationship with the relaxed and unfussy garden. Inhabited beautifully, altered little, and maintained with care, the house is a case study in the lasting benefits of a sympathetic relationship between clients and Architect. 

Much of this inventiveness is evident in the home's careful planning, with level changes and sliding walls creating a greater sense of space in the living area.

In the TVNZ story, Ann McEwan suggests the Hamilton City Council should break its district plan rules to ensure the preservation of the house. The council says it hasn't received any demolition order for the building as yet. 

More NZ architecture in Dwell

More New Zealand architecture on the cover of US magazine Dwell: in their last issue it was Gerald and Kate Parsonson's bach on the Kapiti Coast (you can see the cover in an earlier post here), while the latest issue features Wellington's Amanda Yates and the house she designed for her parents on the Coromandel Peninsula, which you may remember featuring on the cover of our very own December/January 2010 issue. You can view outtakes from Paul McCredie's shoot for us at the link here, and you can read the Dwell story (with photographs by Matthew Williams) online here. Nice to see some international recognition for this very interesting house. As always, remember where you read about it first...

Outtakes: Bergendy Cooke and Guy Fisher's Arrowtown house

We've been receiving plenty of good feedback about our current issue, much of it fan mail for the house near Arrowtown designed by Bergendy Cooke (of BCA Studio) for her partner Guy Fisher and their daughters Anouk and Kiki. This was more than enough encouragement to feature some outtakes here from Paul McCredie's shoot at the house.

This image shows the house on its site, rising abruptly (and intriguingly) from the lawn. The doors downstairs lead to the living areas (set back to provide summer shade), while upper-floor windows are tinted and set flush with the exterior. The slats you can see on the upper floor are part of a deck containing a sauna and open-air bath.

The home's northerly elevation has a subtle kink in it that provides for a slightly different aspect from each of the rooms in the living area and upstairs.

Inside, the living areas are semi-open-plan, with walls of black cabinetry dividing the living and dining areas.

This view below looks back towards the kitchen through the dining room. 

Let's go upstairs now - up the stairwell lined in beautiful boards of Southern Beech, to be exact (they're oiled with a product that has a whitening agent in it, so the boards now look as if they have soft pink tones).

Anouk and Kiki share a room. Bergendy and Guy designed some cool bunks for it.

The image below shows the steps (that double as shelving) from the guest room to the upper deck with the sauna.

And here's another view of the home's exterior, showing the entry at right (a door to the living room is at left).

Our new cover(s)

A small innovation with this, our June/July issue: because we have three South Island houses in the issue (which is relatively rare, and very welcome), we decided to do a special South Island cover to highlight this fact for our mainland readers.

The house on the South Island cover is in the Marlborough Sounds, and was designed by Gerald Parsonson (whose work is also on the current cover of the US architecture magazine Dwell - read more about that in an earlier post here). The photograph is by Paul McCredie. (The other South Island houses in this issue include a Wanaka collaboration between California's Marmol Radziner and Wellington's Herriot + Melhuish Architects, and a house near Arrowtown by Bergendy Cooke).

Meanwhile, North Islanders get to feast their eyes on a photograph of the home of Davor and Abbe Popadich (and their son August), taken by Simon Devitt. The miracle of this house is that such a comfortable and interesting space was created for such a low cost - just $246,000 to build the whole house. You can read more about it in our new issue, on newsstands Monday June 6. Comments on which cover you prefer, and the split-cover approach in general, are very welcome - we'd love to hear your thoughts.

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.

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/):

We like: Gisborne's PAULNACHE gallery

Gisborne's PAULNACHE gallery proves that you don't have to live in one of the main centres to enjoy regular visits to top-notch dealer galleries. Matthew Nache (below left) and Gene Paul set up PAULNACHE over five years ago, and now boast a roster of artists that includes Joanna Langford, Ben Pearce, John Walsh, Robert Jahnke, James Ormsby and Dion Hitchens. Many of the artists have connections to the East Coast themselves, so their presence on the walls of this gallery makes even more sense. Check it out if you're passing through the first city of the sun this summer. The photograph is by Paul McCredie.

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.

Home of the Year finalists

A little tease: here, we present to you an image of each of the finalists in this year's Home of the Year award. They're presented in no particular order - and remember, you have to hang on a while until we announce the winner on the evening of Thursday July 29.

We'll post news of the winner on this site that night, and it will also be announced on TV3's Campbell Live. HOME New Zealand's Home of the Year issue goes on sale August 2.

Thanks to our partners BMW - who admire good design as much as we do - the winning architects receive a $15,000 cash prize, making this New Zealand's richest architectural award.

This year we have six finalists. Unusually, two architects have two finalists each. The first of these is Daniel Marshall, who designed two houses on Waiheke Island. This one (shown below) is nestled in a bay at the island's eastern end, and was photographed by Simon Devitt.

And this one is on the northern side of the island, and was photographed by Patrick Reynolds.

The winners of last year's Home of the Year award, David Mitchell and Julie Stout of Mitchell & Stout Architects, have their own Auckland home (below) in this year's lineup of finalists. It was photographed by Patrick Reynolds.

Stevens Lawson Architects also have two homes in the finals. Both were photographed by Mark Smith. This one is a home on the shores of Lake Wanaka:

And this one is a home in east Auckland:

Finally, this home in Arrowtown was designed by Pete Ritchie and Bronwen Kerr of Queenstown's Kerr Ritchie Architects. It was photographed by Paul McCredie.

Which one do you think should win? Feedback is welcome...

Cedric Firth, perfectly preserved

One of the real gems in our upcoming issue is the Wellington home of architects Alistair Luke and Sharon Jansen and their two daughters. It was designed in 1958 by Cedric Firth and has remained blissfully untouched since. In fact, the previous owner only decided to sell the home to Alistair and Sharon because unlike many other potential buyers, they felt it should remain just as it is - which is to say, almost perfect.

Paul McCredie took these excellent photographs. In this one, the girls sit on the front deck:


Here's a view through the living room to the entry atrium and the stairs leading to the upper level. Note the beautiful built-in furniture, which includes a stereo connecting to built-in speakers in the living room, dining room and kitchen (yes, in 1958). The buddha head sculpture at right is by Miriam van Wezel.

This photo shows the view through the northwest-facing living room to the dining room.

And here's the entry atrium. The blue chair is by the Danish firm France and Daverkosen and was purchased for the home by its original owners. The artwork at far left is by John Pule, while the work further up the stairs is by Reihana MacDonald. The paper lamp is by Isamu Noguchi.

Cedric Firth was in partnership with Ernst Plischke from 1948-1958, but this house (which was originally commissioned by Ian and Gladys McKenzie) is attributed to Firth alone. We talked to Alistair Luke and asked him to contextualise Firth's work for us. Here's what he had to say:

HOME New Zealand: Who was Cedric Firth, and what makes him an important New Zealand architect?

Alistair Luke: Cedric Firth was an intellectual and socially minded architect, he was also a prolific writer. His primary cause was to deliver affordable architecture to all rather than an elite few. In 1947 he worked for the UN in their housing department. His importance in New Zealand architecture resides in his passion for the “International Style”, something he pursued throughout his career. This was a philoshopical cause rather than a fashionable affectation and he shared it with his practicing partner, from 1948 to 1958, Ernst Plischke. In many ways - though controversial at the time - Plischke Firth introduced New Zealand to this style and demonstrated how it could work within our context.

What are Firth's best-known buildings?

With Plischke, Firth worked on Massey House in Wellington's Lambton Quay and on St Mary’s Church in Taihape. Amongst others, his own projects include his own house, the Ward House, the Vance House and the McKenzie House. He also was the architect for the Memorial to Sir Peter Buck, Urenui. His master work is the Monro Building in Nelson.

He was dedicated to bringing some of the International Style to New Zealand – how well did that style fit the context of the New Zealand sites he worked on?

Firth was very much a contextual architect in that he designed houses and buildings that respond directly to their sites. The stylist overlay, which was an intellectual pursuit, advocated this and fit with his care for the fundamentals of orientation to sun, protection from wind, fit wth contour and the amenties of living. His (and Plischke's) houses contrasted dramatically with their neighbours but that was intentional.

Which parts of your house do you like best?

The serenity - we are surrounded by bush and our house extends well beyond it's physical boundaries with floor to ceiling glass. The built-in furniture is a joy too - very much a part of the philosophy of its style - it is extremely well designed and we have much more storage than we can usefully use.

What attracted you to your place in the first instance?
The spaciousness, the natural light and sun, the built-in cabinets and furniture, the bush setting... but mostly we straight away realised that it was a very clever design perfectly attuned to its setting and extremely cool to boot.

How difficult is it for two architects – in this case you and your partner, Sharon Jansen – to live in a house and not meddle with it?
Before we put in our purchase proposal we revisited the house several times and played around with the plans to see how it might be improved. We quickly realised that it was pretty well perfect just the way it is and that alterations and/or addditions would only be ruinous to its essential character. Living in it for the last four years has borne that out and neither of us is tempted to fiddle. We are instead content to restore its more tired aspects back to their original glory.

If you were to design your own home, what lessons would you take from this one?
Perversely, perhaps, we really enjoy the separation of the kitchen from the living and dining area. The kitchen has two built-in tables - one with a banquet seat, the other used to be for sewing (now used for the computer) - and so it functions like a family room as we can all comfortably, and often do, occupy it at the same time. The other feature we'd repeat (actually replicate in every detail) is the tiny TV room, separating that function from everything else. So, I guess, the big lesson would be that open plan living would no longer be the design route for us.

More before and after

The house on the cover of our current issue is the old Thorndon Bowling Club in Wellington, for which architects Mary Daish and Liz Wallace designed a recent renovation. The building had already been turned into a residence in the 1990s, but Mary and Liz were called in to reconfigured the house for new owners, Tim and Fiona Arbuckle and their three children. The shots below best demonstrate the subtle but highly effective changes Liz and Mary introduced.


The 'Before' picture below shows the home's previous kitchen, which was located in a small space adjacent to a sundeck, while the room on the right contained a study.



In the renovation, the study was removed and the deck was filled in and replaced with a sunny area with window seats, as you can see in the image below. A new deck was created on the northwestern corner of the top floor, with stairs connecting to the garden below. The photographs are by Paul McCredie.


This view shows how the kitchen was designed to occupy the space formerly taken up by the study, which also allowed for more windows to let more light into the centre of this large room. The kitchen table and bench seats were custom-made for the space.

Perry Davies

Good news from artist Perry Davies, who lives and works in the little Hawke's Bay hamlet of Ongaonga. Perry says there has been a rush on sales of his whimsical birdhouse sculptures and other works since he was featured in our December/January issue. Perry doesn't seem to have a website but you can easily find his telephone number in the White Pages if you're interested in commissioning him. The photograph is by Paul McCredie.

John Scott bach

One of my favourite houses in our current issue is the bach that the late John Scott designed for Bruce and Estelle Martin and their family near Hokitika (that's the model on Scott's original drawings in the image above). My parents live near Bruce and Estelle's house in Hawkes Bay, also designed by John Scott, and we often visited and bought pottery from them when I was a child. For me, John Scott's work has a magical combination of modesty and confidence, a quiet cleverness that is abundantly evident in the bach, which was photographed by Paul McCredie. Here's a view of the exterior:

And this is the living area upstairs:

This is a favourite shot of mine that we couldn't squeeze into the layout in the magazine. It has a beautiful stillness to it. It was taken on the ground floor of the bach, looking towards the stairwell.

Bruce and Estelle's son Craig Martin helped us a lot in producing our story about the bach. He also has an excellent website featuring many of John Scott's other works, which you should check out if you're interested. It is www.johnscott.net.nz. It's a fantastic resource for anyone curious about this hugely accomplished New Zealand architect.