Brian MacKay-Lyons: Tickets on sale now!

The international member of our Home of the Year jury, Canadian architect Brian MacKay-Lyons, will visit New Zealand in February to help choose the winner of the Home of the Year award (the award results will be published in our April/May 2012 issue).

He'll be giving talks in Auckland (on February 8) and Wellington (on February 9) when he's here, and tickets are now on sale at the link here. Brian is a leading proponent of regionalist architecture, as well as being a sheep farmer and sea kayaker, so his talks promise to be fascinating (Architects get 10 CPD points for attending.) Thanks to our Home of the Year partner Altherm Window Systems for making Brian's visit possible.

That's Brian below, and a shot of one of his buildings by Greg Richardson. For more information about Brian and his work, you can visit his website here.

Our new cover

Our new cover features an outdoor room on Great Barrier Island, designed by Lance and Nicola Herbst of Herbst Architects and photographed by Jackie Meiring. We really like it and hope you do too - subscribers should receive their copies today, and the magazine will be on newsstands on Monday December 5.

Our new issue also features a slick black cottage by Fearon Hay Architects on Great Barrier Island, a colourful, 50s-inspired bach on the Kapiti Coast by Parsonson Architects, New Zealand-born architect David Howell's glamorous New York apartment, a former dental clinic reinvented as a bach at Lake Taupo by Rick Pearson and Briar Green, and lots more. The graphic design boffins among you will also be interested to know that this issue features a redesign led by Arch MacDonnell at Inhouse Design. Let us know your thoughts on it...

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.