Our February/March cover

Here's our new cover, which will be on newsstands February 1. This is our annual 'Art Houses' issue; the cover image was taken by photographer Jeremy Toth in an Auckland penthouse with an extraordinary art collection (the penthouse was designed by Cheshire Architects).

The skull artworks are by Andy Warhol, while the koru work in the background is by Gordon Walters. The sculpture on the hearth is by Francis Upritchard, and the carvings in the background are 19th-century ancestral protection figures from Belu, Timor.

Also in this issue: we visit artist Judy Millar's windswept home and studio (designed by Richard Priest) on a dramatic clifftop west of Auckland, Sarah Maxey's 1980s Wellington cottage by Roger Walker, a vineyard home in Hawkes Bay by Hillery Priest Architects, and some beautiful marae on the Mahia Peninsula, among many other things. We'll post outtakes from some of these shoots over the coming weeks.

Sarah Maxey's house will be featured on TV3's Sunrise tomorrow morning at about 8.40pm. We'll also post the link to that footage once it's available online.

Thursdays at L'affare

A reminder to all you Wellingtonians that the eminent architect and raconteur Roger Walker will be giving a talk tomorrow night (Thursday October 8) at 6pm at Caffe L'affare. Entry is free and so are the drinks. Come and join us for what will be a fascinating and entertaining talk. There's more information on the website of the Architectural Centre, the nice folk who helped us put this event on: www.architecture.org.nz. Hope to see you tomorrow! And thanks to Caffe L'affare for hosting us.

Little and often

I apologise for having broken one of the cardinal rules of blogging: to communicate little and often, ideally in easily digestible daily chunks. It's also important to have something to say, and today we do: we have two talks coming up (presented in association with Wellington's Architectural Centre) at Caffe L'affare in Wellington that y'all are invited to.

Tomorrow night (Thursday September 10 at 6pm) architect Sharon Jansen of Tennent + Brown Architects will be giving a talk about two homes she's recently completed (one of which one a NZ Institute of Architects National Award for Architecture) and some she's designing at the moment. Entry to the talk is free (as are the drinks), just email homenewzealand@acpmagazines.co.nz to register. Here's Sharon:

And here's Turn Point Lodge, the house she designed in the Marlborough Sounds:

And this one's the house in Leigh. All photographs by Paul McCredie.

On Thursday October 8 (same time, same place) Roger Walker will be talking about some of his latest work. You can register for his talk at the same email address.

And here's one of the townhouse projects Roger has been working on: