News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Focus on Food

Focus on Food

The Gascoigne Associates-designed Japanese restaurant Cocoro in Auckland features on the World Interior Design Network site. “The interior décor features large squares of woven charcoal and chocolate carpet that resemble subtle tatami-style matting. All…

Delicate Design Hangs in Berlin

Delicate Design Hangs in Berlin

New Zealand-born designer and ceramicist Jeremy Cole’s porcelain Aloe Blossom suspension lamp hangs in the living room of German writer and producer Peter Schlesselmann’s one-bedroom flat in Berlin’s Tiergarten. The lamp has…

Keeping it Bright and Light

Keeping it Bright and Light

New Zealander Kirsten Cameron and Canadian partner Manuelle Langlois’ Montreal apartment features in The Vancouver Sun’s weekly series ‘Shelter’. The “self-confessed mess-makers” take reporter Laurel Baker on a tour. “I like to have the…

Burry’s Glorious Gaudi

Burry’s Glorious Gaudi

Melbourne-based Mark Burry, executive architect and researcher on the Temple Sagrada Família project in Barcelona, “is lost for words to describe how he felt at the consecration by Pope Benedict XVI” in November 2010….

Stretching Out on High

Stretching Out on High

“In what is being hailed as the most important development in air travel for decades,” Air New Zealand has taken delivery of the world’s first passenger plane with a redesigned interior, allowing economy class…

Polished Parisian Finish

Polished Parisian Finish

A simple New Zealand-designed plastic-clip system — originally made for superyachts — held together a recent Parisian exhibition celebrating the 125th anniversary of Italian fashion brand Bvlgari. The fifteen 8.5m-high pyramids constructed at the…

Lester’s mini Mini

Lester’s mini Mini

Retired Napier mechanic Lester Atherfold, 67, has transformed his 1964 Mini 85 into an even mini-er Mini trimming the 1ft long British classic car to a mere 7ft 1ins. Atherfold sliced 2ft from the…

Record steam

Record steam

Aucklander Simon Janson’s “pretty amazing” steam-powered record player is reviewed by gadgets and gizmos blog site Techabob. “Janson mated steam-power with an Arduino processor. The engine was cobbled together from bits and pieces. The…

Iconic competition

Iconic competition

Northland builder Iain Cathcart’s Hobbit-inspired letterbox has been named the quirkiest in the country in a competition run by Kaukapakapa nursery owners David and Geraldine Bayly. The concrete sculpture topped with white, New Zealand…

Mood-lit air travel

Mood-lit air travel

“Air New Zealand’s new Boeing 777-3ER passenger cabins look more like those inside a private jet than a commercial airliner,” according to Alan Ferguson reporting for The Province. “Redesigned from scratch, the mood-lit cabins…

Starbucks combo

Starbucks combo

Wellington-based design company The Formary, have developed a new sustainable textile called “WoJo” which will be used by coffee chain Starbucks for chairs in their stores and unveiled as part of UK Wool Week…

Lifetime achiever

Lifetime achiever

Jeweller Doug Erkkila, 83, has won the inaugural Jewellers Association of New Zealand’s (JANZ) Hall of Fame and Lifetime Member Award. When accepting the award, the jovial and popular Erkkila was, unusually, lost for…

Hammering out beauty

Hammering out beauty

Metalsmith and jewellery designer New Zealander Amy Bixby, who is based in Seattle, “grew up on a sheep station with parents who instilled the value of making things from scratch”, freelance writer Kathy Schultz…

Artful Carrier

Artful Carrier

The Dunedin-designed Freeload rack is included in a Los Angeles Times article called “Gear: Better bike accessories”. “These new accessories make on- and off-road touring a breeze, indoor training more realistic, fast rides more…

Papery puns

Papery puns

Rangitikei artist Andrew Reilly has turned bull dung into paper, “perfect,” reflects Guardian blogger Roy Greenslade “for publishing bullshit”. After harvesting the dung, Reilly soaks it in water for a fortnight, explaining that there…

Inspired Simplicity

Inspired Simplicity

Remuera boutique interior design studio Monochrome Inc is profiled in Malaysia’s online version of The Star. “Would you consider an interior design colour scheme that’s predominantly black and white? It probably would be tedious, wouldn’t…

Kauri Acoustics

Kauri Acoustics

Bay of Islands-based luthier Christian Druery makes guitars from ancient swamp kauri and last year created two instruments commissioned for the Musical Instrument Museum in Arizona. “Essentially, I was asked to design and build two…

Bouncing Success

Bouncing Success

Christchurch engineer Dr Keith Alexander’s Springfree Trampoline has won the “Children’s Product of the Year” in the largest United States consumer product survey, the Product of the Year Awards. Voted top children’s product by…

Making to Last Locally

Making to Last Locally

New Zealand-based furniture designer David Trubridge is profiled in Australian art and design magazine Dumbo Feather, pass it on sharing “his story and ground-breaking ideas that could revolutionise the way we buy and consume…

Type Heroics

Type Heroics

‘Printing Types: New Zealand type design since 1870’ is an exhibition on until September 12 at Auckland’s Objectspace featuring the type faces of local designers including Joe Churchward, Kris Sowersby and Jack Yan. This…

Take a Seat

Take a Seat

Wellington-based office seating and furniture company, Formway Design has featured recently in Fast Company, Time and The Wall Street Journal for its work on the Generation by Knoll office chair — a…

Waste Not Want Not

Waste Not Want Not

New Zealander Richard Gow has built a house in Canada made entirely from recycled and salvaged materials, including a deck built from wood out of a dumpster. Gow, a home renovator with a degree…

Learning With Light

Learning With Light

Hawkes Bay-based designer David Trubridge’s The Three Baskets of Knowledge features in a Los Angeles Times photo  gallery with an image of “pendulous lighting fixtures that look like giant water droplets suspended in baskets…

Designing the Future

Designing the Future

British-born, Hawkes Bay-based designer David Trubridge, takes part in a Q&A for the latest issue of Dwell, where he quizzed about number of things like his ideal working environment, what music keeps him…

Particles in Motion

Particles in Motion

Fonterra’s latest foray into “smart” water “Whole”, is advertised in a continuous 650-frame shot leaping and transforming from brains to bridges to bananas and was created as a joint project by Auckland-based animation studio…

One Fine Fishing Boat

One Fine Fishing Boat

New Zealand naval architect and multi-hull specialist Roger Hill has designed the Montebello, a luxury 12.5m planing power catamaran for a group of Gold Coast businessmen who – headed by industry identity Gary Zamparutti…

Changing Face

Changing Face

New Zealand-based foundry JY&A Fonts, established by Jack Yan in 1987, has announced a new, classically inspired typeface family, JY Alia created to complement previous his 1994-5 release, JY AEtna. Yan, who is also…

Making Space With Light

Making Space With Light

New Zealand-born architect David Hovey discusses the designs of his 30-year-old Chicago-based business Optima Inc., which he says are influenced by an appreciation of the outdoors. A trace of an accent reveals his roots….

Creative King of Berlin

Creative King of Berlin

Paul Snowden – a New Zealand creative director and designer based in Berlin – has just completed the visual identity and overall design for the 59th Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale. The Berlinale…

Made for Manhattan

Made for Manhattan

New Zealand designers are now represented at essenze, a store within a store at the Metropolitan Design Center on Broadway in New York, which opened on November 19. Exporting to the US since 2005,…

Contained Holiday Spots

Contained Holiday Spots

New Zealand-produced port-a-bach, made by Wellington company Atelier Workshop from shipping containers, are reviewed in multi-medium technology magazine Gizmag, which describes the relocatable dwellings as “the perfect home for a disaster situation.” All that…

Easy Street in Rawene

Easy Street in Rawene

New Zealand-based designer Lise Strathdee’s company Outpost Hokianga, located in Rawene, is a “hip concept store that mixes fashion, books, art and fine food,” according to Time magazine. The notion that fashionable shopping…

Truth from Wood

Truth from Wood

New Zealand furniture designer David Trubridge and his lighting fixtures feature in a Time photo essay. Trubridge is the antithesis of those rock-star product designers who turn up at “design art” auctions in…

Essence of Jade

Essence of Jade

Dunedin jeweller Jamie Fergus took a trip to the largest jade-deposit in the southern hemisphere, to Cowell in South Australia, after which he taught jewellery students in Adelaide how to carve the mine’s particularly…

Luxurious Technology

Luxurious Technology

New Zealanders Jeremy, Simon and Dareen Doherty have won first prize in an international design competition for their swan-shaped ‘Swarovski Mouse’, beating some 4074 individuals and institutions from 92 countries. The ‘Crystal Vision’ competition…

Snug as a Bug

Snug as a Bug

Merino Kids founder Amie Nilsson designed the award-winning Cocooi Babywrap with biblical swaddling in mind, keeping babies safely on their back and asleep longer. Swaddling creates a slight pressure around the baby’s body that…

Geometric on the Bay

Geometric on the Bay

The 1931 Napier earthquake devastated the Hawkes Bay region, but two years later Napier was rebuilt and an Art Deco masterpiece. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Rebecca Lancashire pays a visit and “wanders the city…

Aotearoa a la Mode

Aotearoa a la Mode

New Zealand lifestyle and design fills 15 pages in this month’s Marie Claire Maison. The French publication’s spread  includes Outpost Hokianga (Rangi Kipa’s Corian Tiki pictured), EON, Stevens Lawson, David Trubridge, Black…

All for a Chat Show

All for a Chat Show

Twenty-two year old Christchurch design student Nick Lowe wants to raise $1 million on YouTube in the hope of millionaire-status and a spot on Ellen Degeneres’ talk show. This week Lowe passed the $1,000…

Smith’s Cool Design

Smith’s Cool Design

Massey University Industrial Design student Aucklander Stephen Smith is New Zealand’s top emerging designer winning a $3,000 Dyson Product Design Award for his “Arctic Skin”. The vest stabilizes a sportsperson’s body temperature via a…

Moko in Vogue

Moko in Vogue

A French fashion designer’s use of moko in advertisements for his latest collection has caused a stir in NZ. Jean Paul Gaultier’s campaign shots, featuring male and female models with Maori facial tattooing, have…

Down Under Planter

Down Under Planter

Next month sees the NZ launch of the Antipode Planter, an award winning upside-down planter by the Matakana-based Morris Design Office. Designed by Patrick Morris, the Antipode Planter won the UK New Designers Award in 2006 and…

Design Mobel Goes Global

Design Mobel Goes Global

Tauranga bed and furniture maker Design Mobel has launched the first of its Okooko global concept stores in Wellington and Hong Kong, with more to follow in the US later this year. Okooko stores integrate award…

Designs on New York

Designs on New York

Christchurch-born art director and graphic designer, Jeff Docherty has spent the last seven years making a name for himself in NZ, Australia, and New York. To date, Docherty’s work has appeared in the New…

Royal Welcome for NZ Flora

Royal Welcome for NZ Flora

The largest collection of NZ native plants in the UK has opened at the Savill Garden, near Windsor Castle in Surrey. The NZ Garden in Great Windsor Park was officially opened by the Duke of York…

Herne Bay Haven

Herne Bay Haven

Wallpaper’s April issue includes a Pacific-inspired Herne Bay home designed Auckland’s Stevens Lawson Architects. “For us, it’s the ultimate modernist abstraction,” says architect Nicholas Stevens of the impressive structure, which features a…

Playboy Bunny Turned Property Mogul

Playboy Bunny Turned Property Mogul

New Zealander Sandra Costa is co-owner and designer of new LA super-club Tatou. The 35,000 sq ft space features state-of-the-art sound and lighting, 45 plasma screens, a 40 ft stage, private VIP rooms and a rooftop restaurant,…

Not Your Average Winery

Not Your Average Winery

Americans can finally appreciate the work of artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser on home soil, with the opening of the Quixote Winery in California’s Napa Valley. Owner Carl Doumani commissioned the eccentric Viennese-born artist to design…

Pre-historic Chic

Pre-historic Chic

Shoppers at London’s Selfridges can now purchase the ultimate ecological antique: a piece of furniture carved from 30,000 year-old NZ kauri wood. The NZ government has allowed a limited quantity of the timber to be harvested…

Cream of the Crop

Cream of the Crop

Essenze New Zealand‘s Manhattan store featured in the December issue of Elle Decor. Essenze showcases the work of David Trubridge, Alison Henry, David Haig and more, with a focus on eco-friendly and native materials. The business…

Holland Ahoy

Holland Ahoy

New Zealander Ron Holland is one of the world’s top naval architects. Based in the small Irish sailing port of Kinsale, his latest project is designing and building a 190-foot, $50 million superyacht Ethereal for Sun…

Essential Design from the World’s Edge

Essential Design from the World’s Edge

Essenze, the distribution partner for some of NZ’s best known designers, has partnered with Saatchi & Saatchi to present a comprehensive exhibition at the ad agency’s New York headquarters at 375 Hudson St. Entitled ‘The Edge…

Designs on Hyde

Designs on Hyde

Palmerston North sculptor Paul Dibble is the winner of an NZ government sponsored competition to design a $3 million war memorial in London’s Hyde Park. Dibble’s design – developed in association with Athfield Architects of Wellington…

Award in the Bag

Award in the Bag

The giant handbag-shaped tent used at the openings of Louis Vuitton mega-stores in Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo and Paris has won its NZ manufacturers an esteemed international design award. Fabric Shelter Systems (Whangarei)…

Home Office

Home Office

The work of New York based Kiwi architect David Howell scored the cover of September’s Interior Design magazine. Howell’s  firm transformed the New York office of London post-production house Framestore CFC (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Harry…

About Me

About Me

Edge denim designer Nicole Colovos and husband Michael were guest editors and cover stars of the sixth issue of independent US magazine, Me. Created by New York art director Claudia Wu, Me profiles a…