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.

 

Junya Ishigami's Balloon

We're silly about the work of Japanese architect Junya Ishigami, who was in Auckland last week speaking at the NZ Institute of Architects' conference. During his talk, Ishigami showed images of his creation 'Balloon', an aluminium structure that weighed one tonne but floated ethereally in a Tokyo gallery space because it was filled with helium. It looked miraculous, and prompted an eruption of spontaneous applause. We found this YouTube video of it to show you:

And the finalists are...

Brian MacKay-Lyons and his wife Marilyn are on the plane back to Canada, and the Home of the Year judges have made their decisions. So, we're very pleased to annouce the finalists in our Home of the Year award 2012.

The winner will be announced at a cocktail function in Auckland on March 29, and the results published in our April/May issue, which is on sale from April 2.

In the meantime, we're busy getting our five very exciting finalists photographed to feature in our Home of the Year issue. (For those of you who can't wait, you can see amateur pics from our judging trip on our Facebook page or Twitter feed - just click on the Twitter box on the right-hand side of this page).

Anyway, the five finalists in the award (in no particular order) are:

• A home near Wellington by Jasmax
• A home at Pahoia, near Tauranga, by Warren & Mahoney
• A holiday home at Piha by Herbst Architects
• A bach at Onemana on the Coromandel Peninsula by Strachan Group Architects in conjunction with Unitec students
• A bach at Whangapoua on the Coromandel Peninsula by Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects.

We're really looking forward to publishing our Home of the Year issue and showing you how good these five homes are. Thanks to our Home of the Year partner Altherm Window Systems for making this all possible.