The cover story of the Sunday Star Times Property lift-out for 10 June 2012, called it “Stunning Vistas”. The photo was of a ubiquitous glass box at night, all angles and steel, floating above gravel and grass, set against a darkening blue sky. Inside, more images of the house during the day – more gravel, a grey sky, ugly furniture, an uglier rug – with the heading, “Designs on a view”. What does that even mean? A miserable attempt at a play on words by a junior sub-editor assigned to the property section when he really has ‘designs’ on the business section? The use of the word ‘designs’ is clearly supposed to mean both the design of the house and to ‘have designs on’ the view. The latter use is strange and inappropriate: it means to contrive a secret plot or scheme, especially with selfish motives, as in ‘he has designs on my job’, or ‘Mary has designs on her sister’s boyfriend’. So we learn that this is a house that was designed (really?) and it has a secret plan to – what? – assail the view? Undermine it? Sell it? When did the architectural profession relinquish the language of description to real estate agents and, worse, the media?

But perhaps what is more interesting about this house (and more damning of New Zealand architecture) is its story. Americans, Fred and Kitty, having never visited these fair isles, saw an article on the Bay of Islands, fell in love (as you do), flew down and bought some land at Paroa Bay. What did they do next? Did they research the local architecture scene and find examples of houses they liked and architects that had worked in the area? Did they engage one of these architects to help them understand the particular climatic and geographical conditions of their site and the best way to build there? No, they bought another magazine, one with images of a house built in Australia by Australian architect James Grose of Bligh Voller Nield. “I emailed James to see if he would sell me the plans for the house to build a version of it in New Zealand”. Which he did. Philip Lindesay of Lindesay Construction (the house’s builders) said in an interview in Building Today, “The architect was adamant that the style and design shouldn’t be changed at all, which was a bit of a challenge”. A house designed for the Australian outback plonked down in the Bay of Islands: this is transplanted architecture that makes no effort to understand or respond to its environment. Must be all those years without the Bledisloe Cup. Not content to colonise our architecture, they have borrowed our language. The house (commissioned by an American, designed by an Australian) has a Maori name: Te Whare Ho _ iho. Which means the horse house. Of course. Phar Lap.

This is quality architecture and we know it because it won “one of the highest honours in New Zealand house accolades (sic), the Registered Master Builders’ House of the Year”. And we know this because it says so in the inset box in the article under “Selling Point”. That it also won an Institute of Architects’ award is not mentioned; clearly not a selling point, nothing to be proud of and not an honour in the house accolades stakes. The NZIA awards citation said, “… In the Miesian Murcutt tradition, the structure remains in its elemental state”. Must have been from Mies van der Rohe’s later period and Murcutt’s earliest: who knew they worked together long enough to establish a tradition? With writing like this, it is little wonder that real estate agents have taken over the language of architecture. The citation also says that the building “is enclosed with metal sheeting reminiscent of the original settlers’ agricultural buildings”. These would be the original settlers of Australia, given the architecture’s provenance.

The article tells us “Te Whare Ho _ iho is only in existence because of the right person reading the right magazine at the right time”. How can New Zealand architects compete in their own patch when so many of the wrong people are reading the wrong magazines at the wrong time?

So what do we have to be worried about? That Australian architects are building their second-hand designs here and are too lazy to change them? That Americans are commissioning them because they are too lazy to find New Zealand architects? That the Master Builders give copycat architecture a supreme award (wouldn’t be the first time) or that the NZIA does so as well (hope it’s the last time)? That real estate agents are controlling the narrative? That it is not architecture that sells but building?

Or should we be more worried about whether James Grose has designs on New Zealand architecture?