Register for Monthly Updates about Kiwis Rocking the World
Architecture
Hotelier Sean Macpherson Clearly Has the Midas Touch
New Zealand-born hotelier Sean MacPherson’s Bowery, Jane, Maritime, Lafayette House and Marlton Hotels will always be some of lower Manhattan’s coolest places to stay, according to Forbes Life contributor…
Herbst Architects’ Sensitive Retreat Invites the Outside in
A new beach house – “overlooking New Zealand’s breathtaking Whangarei Heads” – designed by Auckland husband-and-wife team Lance and Nicola Herbst is featured on design magazine Wallpaper’s website.
“Situated on…
Mark Wigley Judging Hot Helsinki Guggenheim Competition
New Zealand born architect and author Mark Wigley is the jury chair for the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition, which has now announced finalists for the as-yet-unapproved Guggenheim art museum…
Art of Living with Significant Spatial Drama
New Zealand-born painter Stefan Dunlop’s treetop Noosa home is one of a number of artists’ houses throughout the world with “significant spatial drama”, according to a Telegraph article. Dunlop…
Mark Burry Maintains Epic Work on the Sagrada Família
Executive architect of the Sagrada Família New Zealander Mark Burry has been able to complete Gaudí’s designs by devising parametric computer modelling techniques, adapted from the aerospace industry. Burry…
Michael Volkerling, Cultural Visionary (1948-2014)
One of the principal architects of New Zealand’s cultural and creative sectors, Dr Michael Volkerling, died suddenly on 13 June, 2014 in Sydney, aged 66. At the time of…
Caribbean Island Getaway Opens Doors
Former music industry executive New Zealand-born Simon Baeyertz is co-owner of El Blok, a 22-room inn which has just opened on a small island off the eastern…
Architecture Full of Romantics – Mark Wigley, Retiring Columbia Dean
New Zealand-born Mark Wigley has stepped down after 10 years as dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University. Under his leadership, the…
Auckland’s Greatest Ruin Comes to Life
“Creative enterprises and unique collaborations are flourishing in Auckland thanks to the dramatic renovation of a collection of 1960s city council workshops,” Monocle reports.
“Until two years ago, the City…
Bright Chelsea Square Home NZ-Inspired
Free, easy, glamorous and family-orientated is how interior designer and architect Alison Henry sums up her style, and because she is originally from New Zealand, she says…
Kiwi Bach Takes Top Architecture Award
A small Kiwi-designed bach has won a prestigious award at a ceremony dubbed the “Oscars of architecture” in New York.
The “sled hut”, which measures a mere 40sq m over…
Vision West a Pioneering New Housing Project
Strachan Group Architects in Auckland is one of four innovative companies “from London to Tokyo” to feature in a Monocle special on social housing projects, with developments…
Cardboard Cathedral Architect Wins Pritzker Prize
The designer of Christchurch’s Cardboard Cathedral, Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, has been named the winner of this year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize, largely because of his work designing…
Guided Tours Showcase Napier’s Fascinating Architecture
“Nobody was building town centres during the Depression, so Napier is rare,” says Robert McGregor, Independent journalist John Lee’s guide and the author of several books on the city….
Shaping New Zealand’s landscape
Notable landscape architect Thomas Woltz has an innovative and ecologically minded approach to shaping the world around us. The US-based Woltz is currently working on projects in New Zealand,…
Mark Wigley’s Experimental Genius
Mark Wigley, dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), has announced that he would step down from his position at the end of the…
Christchurch Cardboard Cathedral Opens
Christchurch’s ‘cardboard’ cathedral has opened, a move that is seen as a significant step in the regeneration of the city following the February 2011 earthquake that killed 185 people. …
Parisian Architectural Exhilaration
New Zealand-born architect Brendan MacFarlane, one half of Paris-based firm Jakob + MacFarlane, has had his hand in redesigning the French capital’s docks. The New York Times…
New Look Cathedral Unveiled
Christchurch’s new cathedral, which will be made of cardboard and will house 700 people, is due for completion in April next year. The city’s magnificent Gothic revival cathedral hewn…
Home On The Range
A Queenstown detached home with “views of the mountains, deer roaming nearby, and hills that change colour with the seasons,” is the Wall Street Journal’s ‘House of the Day’….
Portable Home on Sleds
Auckland’s Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects have designed a macrocarpa-clad hut made with a requirement that all structures be removable. The hut measures 40 square metres and rests…
On The Cheap In Auckland
Auckland Art Gallery is one of a “trifecta of frugal activities” recommended by The New York Times’ Seth Kugel on “a day and a half” visit to…
Distinctively World Famous
“Today, of 164 buildings constructed between 1920 and 1940, 140 remain, forming a time capsule of design elements — zigzags, sunbursts, Egyptian motifs and geometric patterns — that…
Woodland Harmony
A 1960s Boston house designed by Hamilton-born Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor and architect Maurice Smith is advertised as for sale in the Boston Herald. “This Weston contemporary is…
Reflective Energy Efficiency
Auckland’s “sleek” New Zealand Insurance Centre is “one of the city’s most eye-catching and sustainable buildings utilizing energy efficient technology” according to CNN. “Situated on a busy junction, the…
Great Things Take Seasons
New Zealander Mark Burry is executive architect of the Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family in Barcelona and part of a project that needs no completion date…
Christchurch’s Cardboard Cathedral
The quake-ravaged Christ Church Cathedral is set to be rebuilt – using cardboard. Since the destruction of the iconic building in February’s deadly earthquake, rebuilding the Cathedral has been…
Xena’s Mt Albert Eco-Home
Lucy Lawless, star of television series Xena and Spartacus, is returning to her roots in Mt Albert, Auckland where she is converting a large part of her estate into…
Paraparaumu Paradise
“For a small country, New Zealand has surfeit of coastline: over 9,400 miles of it, more than the contiguous United States (which has roughly 5,000), and enough to allow…
Inspired By Nature
The stunning landscape of Waiheke Island (off Auckland’s east coast) is home to over 7,5 residents. Regenerating bush, an indented coastline, vineyards and olive groves are some…
With Light in Mind
A design by a group of Victoria University students, inspired by the New Zealand bach, is the first southern hemisphere entry in the international US Department of…
Leading Lights of Architecture
Auckland architecture firm Patterson Associates has been named as one of the five practices set to shape the future of architecture. World Architecture News, the top international…
Distinctly New Zealand Feel
New Zealand landscaper Sam Martin has landed a multi-million dollar contract to redevelop London’s iconic Battlesea Power Station. After sitting derelict for nearly 3 years, Europe’s largest brick building…
Structural Snapshots
New Zealand’s best new buildings range from a bus shelter in Queenstown and an office tower in Auckland, to an opera house in Oamaru, houses on Waiheke Island,…
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…
Finn Plays SXSW
Musician and songwriter Liam Finn launches his first-ever full band tour beginning with two gigs in Austin at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival. Finn’s next album…
Drawn into the fold
Christchurch City Art Gallery is a “place that works” according to design and architecture publication Metropolis Magazine, connecting to the natural environment “through modern architectural form that resonates…
Humbug Like the Lolly
New Zealand abstract painter Peter Adsett and architect Sam Kebbell’s collaboration on Adsett’s Mornington Peninsula, Melbourne property, ‘Humbug’ features in the summer 21/11 issue of Architectural Review Australia. The…
Customise Your Cool
Auckland-based One Cool Habitat designs small portable container habitats for use as home offices, studys or sleep outs and ships them around the world. The company’s site…
Structural winnings
The Supreme Court of New Zealand in Wellington, designed by New Zealand-based Warren & Mahoney and completed in 29, has won the Institution of Structural Engineers Structural Award in…
Simply affordable
Earlier this year, director of Auckland-based S3 Architects Limited Stephen Smith won a Department of Building and Housing competition challenging entrants to come up with a design for a…
Hospitable angles
“Inspired by the nearby Remarkables and Bob’s Peak, architects incorporated intriguing roof angles into a low-line structure housing just 19 rooms, including a fabulous two-level…
Intimate Sophistication
Wanaka’s Whare Kea is included in a Forbes’ list of the ‘World’s Top Microboutique Hotels’. “Whare Kea means ‘house of the kea’ in Maori — the kea being the…
Wilderness gold
“Just like the safari camp and the ski chalet, the New Zealand lodge is a triumph of reinvention, the transformation of a utilitarian wilderness refuge into tourism gold,” writes…
Designer royalty
Prestigious industry magazine Architectural Digest has named New Zealander Sandra Nunnerley in its annual AD 100 directory which represents a “selection of the top architects and interior designers whose…
Stepping off the deck
For the past 20 years, Sir Peter Blake’s widow Pippa Blake has lived on the Chichester harbour sea front in a 1940s bungalow where just recently “a forward-thinking architect…
Parliamentary eyesore
The Beehive has been rated among the world’s ten ugliest buildings, coming in at number three on a list decided by editors and members of the popular online Virtual…
To a job well done
The life and work of distinguished New Zealand architect, Marshall Cook— whose career spans over 40 years and across six countries — is paid homage in Issue 03 of…
Perfect for picking
Andrew McKenzie’s mid-orchard home is featured in this month’s Dwell magazine as the perfect example of a marriage between economy, sustainability and design. The house earned Architects Cecile Bonnifait…
iDYLLIC
The New Zealand designed iPAD is an eco-friendly prefabricated building and one of “six of the best in the world” according to the Independent on Sunday. After producing the…
Sixties renewal
Auckland-based fashion designer Kate Sylvester and her partner Wayne Conway chose New Zealand architect Belinda George to design the renovations to their 1960s Westmere home, remaining true to that…
Home sweet home
“The time has come to learn from Down Under,” where homes have sustainable features “light years ahead of the curve,” are “modestly scaled and unpretentious, employ an original aesthetic…
Barrier’s best bachs
The improvisational shacks of the Great Barrier Island have inspired a new breed of bachs, collecting rainfall for water treating waste for irrigation, harnessing the sun with solar panels,…
With glass and steel
David Hovey, the New Zealand-born, award-winning architect who owns Optima Inc. in Arizona says his dream home would be a contemporary home built of steel and glass built near…
21st century renewal
Wellington’s Waitangi Park – transformed in a collaboration between landscape architects Wraight & Associates and Athfield Architects – combines environmentally-sound urban redevelopment with recreation, and includes water purifying ponds,…
More than shelter
The “Mai Mai” house in Ponsonby (above) and the clubhouse at The Hills golf course in Queenstown (below), both designed by Auckland-based architects Patterson Associates, have been named finalists…
