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Revisited: Choong House

Projects | The Choong House burst onto Melbourne’s architectural scene in the late 1980s, heralding the innovative work of three young architects: Roger Wood, Randal Marsh and Dale Jones-Evans. Biltmoderne, the ...

Book review: The Vertical Picturesque: Four Essays on Auckland Houses

Review | Every book about architecture should be like this: uncomplicated in its purpose, content and structure, beautiful to look at, and short. Indeed, it might be that most books intended for an architectur...

Pakiata Matariki set to light up Auckland’s Te Komititanga

News | For ngāi Māori, Matariki as a harbinger of the new year is a celebration of new beginnings. With manawa translating as heart, Matariki ki te Manawa becomes a timely and fitting metaphor for a city cen...

Behind the Object: The Navicula light

Review | Jacinda Rogers (JR): I understand the Navicula light was inspired by microscopic diatoms that live in the ocean. What got you interested in these tiny life forms? / David Trubridge (DT): I have always...

Exhibition: Oceanic Architectural Routes: The photographic archive of Mike Austin

Review | Mike Austin, known for his humility, would shrink from the title ‘Godfather of Pacific Architecture’, even if I use it in moderate jest. But there is truth in the ruse. Parsing the canon of Pacific ar...

Meet the 2023 Interior Awards jurors: Jon Rennie

People | Jon Rennie is a principal of Athfield Architects and heads its Auckland studio. Originally from Wellington, Jon has more than 20 years of postgraduation experience in the design of public architecture...

Utzon pilgrimage: Bagsvaerd Church

Review | In the last year of his architectural studies and while working at his father Jørn Utzon’s office, Jan Utzon made the presentation model for Bagsvaerd Church. After graduation he became the supervisor...

With Mike Hindmarsh

People | Houses: Have you always been design minded? / Mike Hindmarsh: I’ve always been attracted to craft and handskills. My father was a builder by trade, so I had access to tools from an early age – there w...

Secede Auckland!

People | The hunt for suitable products led to late-night phone calls to British companies as he sought to gain the right to represent companies he had found by, well, I don’t really know how in those pre-inte...

On reading and lucky jobs

People | Since COVID-19, ideas of the workplace and the amount of time you should spend there have been revisited; this invites reflection on other previously held expectations and social obligations of work. De...

From terraces to Deco - ‘first editions’ in Auckland’s high density housing

Practice | Naming a design style is not a common practice for architects in the twenty-first century. However, it is interesting to reflect on the nameable styles of housing architecture that emerged between 199...

Revisited: Fulcher Residence

Projects | Enthusiasts of Brisbane architecture usually associate the work of Peter Heathwood with his seminal lightweight houses, whose elegant box-like forms were often wrapped in a sunshading veil. His standi...

NZIA revisited

Review | Federico Monsalve: Any high point in the conference? / Aaron Paterson: Sam Jacob. He looks at architecture a bit differently from the sterile modernism that you see. FM: It felt almost like a literary...

Opinion: Our moral agenda

Practice | / When we celebrate the best, is it for the best? Language met its limitations with COVID-19; the word ‘unprecedented’ was used initially in 2020 by politicians without cynicism but, by the end of t...

Opinion: Twenty minutes in Tāmaki Makaurau

Practice | In my last column, I discussed the reasons for revisiting our collective moral compass as we move through and beyond this COVID time, by rethinking what is considered achievement and, therefore, celeb...

To review or listen?

People | My friend said he had read the column and found it interesting, and that it made some architects that he knew feel disgruntled. When I asked why that may be, he replied that I discussed ideas and shou...

The art of architecture - Sir Miles Warren

People | The two questions often put to retired architects are: how has architecture changed over the last 50 years, and how will it change in the future? I am probably less able to predict the future than an ...

Courtyard housing: a mid-density alternative

Review | Present policies are intended to ensure a sustainable form of urban development, aiming to increase urban density and stocks of affordable housing. This has led to current practice in which house type...

Oh God, I hate this

Review | A constitutional monarch must keep his opinions to himself and, regardless of whether he agrees or not, blithely rubber-stamp royal assent to all legislation passed by the government of the day. But, ...

Climate Positive Design Challenge

News | On the back of global climate change protests, U.S firm CMG Landscape Architecture has launched the Climate Positive Design Challenge, which enables professionals around the world to take climate acti...

State housing: The new generation

Practice | The first state house was built in New Zealand in the 1930s. Many of these icons of New Zealand architecture are still standing today, providing living spaces for Kiwis all over the country. At Peddle...

Modernist evolution: McLeod House

Projects | Ideas, themes and motifs have been tested here, revisited and reworked. It is also an expression of Ian’s strong connection with the experimental and expressive architecture of mid-century modernism. Th...

Crafty rooster: Kelburn Townhouse

Projects | The north end of Kelburn, between The Terrace and the top of the Botanic Gardens, has long been a locus classicus of Wellington’s haute bourgeoisie. It’s a handsome precinct of steep streets and fine ...

Advanced pose: Remuera House

Projects | On the northern slopes of Remuera, dotted with conservative faux Tudor and Arts and Craft mansions, an unabashedly modern, zinc clad house is something of a surprise. Of course, a little shock can be ...

Sensitive yet striking: East Melbourne Terrace

Projects | When the clients for East Melbourne Terrace decided to relocate from their home in the suburb of Canterbury, they had specific requirements in mind: a smaller house, with little-to-no upkeep, and some...

Experiments with light: James Turrell dazzles at the NGA

Review | James Turrell is a veteran Californian artist who throughout a career spanning almost half a century has employed light as a vehicle through which to manipulate the viewer’s perception of space. The T...

IFLA50: Keynote speaker preview

People | Adrian McGregor is a landscape architecture, urban design professional and managing director of McGregor Coxall, a Sydney- and Melbourne-based environmental design studio. Graduating with a bachelor o...

Suiting up

Projects | Architecture doesn’t arrive all at once. There’s a lot to unpack and hang, ribbons to cut, names to gift. Such welcoming celebrations are important for community, yet it is worth reflecting that we ra...

Revisiting the Aaltos

Practice | 1982: As a young architect, I had wrestled my way from Turkey to Finland, at the soggy end of a hitchhiker’s version of the Grand Tour, involving low-budget lodgings, sleeping on beaches, thumbing lif...

Anti-social distancing

Practice | The Auckland Unitary Plan (AUP) that came into force in November 2016 revised the rules for housing design across the city’s region, introducing new paradigms, and unifying regional policies for the d...