Sunrise

Here at HOME New Zealand, we were really sorry to hear that TV3 was shutting down Sunrise, our favourite breakfast TV show. This means, of course, that our weekly house feature won't be running. We want to thank the Sunrise team for their support and enthusiasm for good design, and to wish the team there well.

Michael O'Sullivan in Dwell

Michael O'Sullivan and Melissa Schollum's house in the Auckland suburb of Mangere Bridge - a finalist in last year's Home of the Year, the winner of a NZ Institute of Architects national award, and the winner of the inaugural BMW EfficientDynamics Sustainability Award - is featured in the latest issue of US-based Dwell magazine, with photographs by Patrick Reynolds. Congratulations from us to Michael on the international coverage of his great design.

Here's a link to the story on the Dwell site:

The Great Compression - Homes - Dwell

The '80s weren't so bad

We don't often get the opportunity to fly the flag for the 1980s, but in our latest issue we were pleased to. As many of you already know, the theme of this issue is 'Before & After'. The interesting thing about the renovation Julian Guthrie (of Godward Guthrie Architects) designed for this house on Auckland's Takapuna Beach was that in some ways, the original house didn't need too much altering. That was partly because it was designed in hte late 1980s by good architects in the first place: the Auckland firm of Mark-Brown, Fairhead, Sang and Carnachan. And it is partly because Julian's changes were so astute.

One of Julian's main interventions (apart from updating the kitchen and bathrooms) was the relocation of the stairway that connects the home's upper and lower levels. Here's what the hallway used to look like before the stairs were moved (the sloping site means you enter the home on the upper level, while the lower level connects with the garden and the path to the beach):

And below is one of Patrick Reynolds' photographs of it afterwards. Julian says moving the position of the stairs made the connection between the home's upper and lower levels much clearer, and also made it feel much easier to move between the two.

The transformation is particularly evident when viewed from the home's lower level. Here's the 'before' shot:

And here's the 'after'. Much better!