Houses: Did you want to be an architect when you were growing up?

Fiona Short: Yes, I’ve always had a fascination with the built environment and its impact on our everyday lives. As a child, I lived for making cardboard and blanket houses.

HS: Can you describe your architecture career thus far?

FS: In 2009 I graduated from UoA where my final project dealt with the architect’s role following a disaster.
I did a short stretch of freelance design work before getting a job at a design and build company, Simon Brown Builders, whilst volunteering for Architecture for Humanity_Auckland Chapter. I then travelled to Nepal for a Habitat for Humanity build and visited some amazing crafted structures in India including at Chandigarh as well as the Louis Kahn-designed Indian Institute of Management, which had a big impact on me. I was back in New Zealand for a couple of weeks when the Christchurch quake hit. Months later I was living in Christchurch and working for Warren and Mahoney and facing being a part of the exciting and overwhelming task of rebuilding and reinventing the country’s third largest city.

HS: What are you working on at the moment?

FS: A community of 12 residential units for the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary and a structurally expressive house for an engineer and his wife in the Port Hills.

HS: What do you enjoy most about working in architecture?

FS: A considered architectural solution tells a story of a time, a need and a place. I enjoy the process of working with great people to compose this story.

HS: If you could design a house anywhere in New Zealand, where would it be?

FS: Off the grid, in the regenerating scrub on Great Barrier Island.