Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2016 i Home New Zealand

Sometimes this country’s housing crisis seems so deep that it’s difficult to know where to begin. House prices, particularly in Auckland, have rocketed so high that the term “housing affordability” has become an oxymoron. In 1980, the median house price was double the median annual salary; in Auckland these days the median house price is almost 10 times the median income. High prices have pushed debt to dangerous levels, with a recent Westpac report citing the build-up of household debt as one of the key issues confronting the New Zealand economy. Rampant property speculation – early this year, over 40 percent of house sales in the Auckland market were to investors – has caused turbulence in the rental market: the average length of residential tenancies in New Zealand homes is…

Perhaps this shows us that things really do change. In Tamaki Drive, Auckland’s Hammerheads was a bastion of early 90s luxe, serving seared scallops with big buttery chardonnays and a first-rate view back to the city skyline. It was a formula that saw the restaurant sail through that decade, but the new millennium saw it struggle, and it closed its doors in 2015. Now the venue is casting off its booze-and-good-times guise to slip into something more suitable for this health-conscious age: it has reopened as True Food & Yoga, a wellness hub and yoga centre that is the brainchild of husband-and-wife restaurateurs and yoga enthusiasts Nic and Kelly Watt. Nic, who has worked in high-profile restaurants in Australia, Japan and the UK, is the chef behind the enormously successful…

Key 1. Garage 2. Balcony 3. Living room/office 4. Kitchen 5. Bedroom/office 6. Wardrobe 7. Bathroom 8. Mezzanine/library What has changed in building terms since the Christchurch earthquakes? The ground beneath our buildings is now of paramount importance. Prior to the earthquakes, this building would probably have sat on a thick, reinforced concrete pad but now, each corner has piles drilled 16 metres into the ground. We think more creatively about how structures are put together to allow for movement. There are new parameters and technologies and I find that very exciting. Do you think the Christchurch public is more open to innovative architecture post-earthquakes? Absolutely. Not only are we much more acutely aware of materials and structure, we’re more open to new ideas. I think it’s important that in…

This little studio on Banks Peninsula has, almost inadvertently, become a much-loved permanent abode. The couple has found their 65-square-metre home fulfils all their needs. It was originally designed as a small, transitional home for Mike and Brenda Warrander after their adjacent home was extensively damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes. This little studio on Banks Peninsula has, almost inadvertently, become a much-loved permanent abode. The couple has found their 65-square-metre home fulfils all their needs. It’s a new direction, a bold response to the trauma and damage the earthquakes caused. The Warranders have decided life is too short to “continue working endlessly, ploughing money into a large house”. Built close to the Warranders’ soon-to-be-demolished, quake-damaged four-bedroom house on an adjacent title, the new home has expansive views. This is a…

HOME’s Style Safari is an exclusive day-long set of briefings on the latest design trends and new furniture releases, guided by HOME editor Jeremy Hansen. The day commences at 10am and includes design briefings at Christchurch’s most important design stores, finishing around 5pm. Lunch is included. Numbers on the Style Safari are limited to 50, so reserve your tickets now. OUR GUEST SPEAKERS Jeanne Bertenshaw MATISSE The co-founder of Matisse will talk through new arrivals from the Milan Furniture Fair, as well as the latest developments in kitchens and bathrooms. Annaliese Murrell BOCONCEPT Annaliese will showcase the latest interior trends from Denmark, presenting the new releases from BoConcept’s 2018 collection. Mike Thorburn ECC ECC’s Mike Thorburn has a host of new lighting and furniture releases from Milan covered, as well…

ADRIENNE REWI Christchurch-based Adrienne wrote two of our small-home features ( p.120 and p.142). Which of the two small homes you’ve covered would you most like to move into? The Cotter house by Thom Craig. I’m intrigued by small housing, especially Japanese houses – the attention to detail, the simplicity, the minimalism – which is the antithesis of how I live (in a large, old house surrounded by objects, art and visual prompts). Both homes are innovative responses to Christchurch’s post-quake situation, but it seems as if the city’s main response to housing after the quakes has been to build standard-issue suburbs on the city fringe. Is this accurate? I’m constantly walking the streets of Christchurch with a camera and I’m frequently disappointed by the number of bland, cookie-cutter homes springing…

Forget all the fuss over electric cars: for city driving, you’re still as likely to be stuck in congestion as you would in a petrol-powered vehicle. The real answer to city traffic is tantalisingly close at hand: the e-bike. Globally, for every electric vehicle currently built, 100 e-bikes are made. There are already more than 200 million of them in use right now in China. Even the bike-mad Dutch are falling for them, with a third of all bike sales there last year being electric. E-bikes completely transform the cycling experience, pushing you effortlessly up hills and enabling even the longest of rides to pass by sweat-free. They are shedding their geriatric appearance and becoming sleek and sophisticated. They can be charged at trivial cost with New Zealand’s (mostly) renewably…

Our second Style Safari of 2016 focuses on the new: new showrooms, new brands, furniture releases, the latest developments in interiors. Style Safari is an exclusive day of briefings from industry experts, guided by HOME editor Jeremy Hansen. The day commences at 9am and includes briefings on design developments at some of Auckland’s most important design stores, finishing around 5pm. Lunch is included. Numbers on the Style Safari are limited to 50, so reserve your tickets now. OUR GUEST SPEAKERS Angus Dawson DAWSON & CO The founder of Dawson & Co reports on his firm’s latest European furniture acquisitions and new design directions. Martin Buchegger SOURCE MONDIAL Source Mondial’s managing director will brief guests on the latest trends in flooring and the rise of custom-made artisan rugs. Jeanne…

“It has been a good experiment in living in confined quarters with family and friends. It still seems like there is a luxury of space.” The terrace, which forms the centre of the home, is a vital breathing space, alleviating pressure on the petite living areas. The landscape of the Cardrona Valley is big; the 72-square-metre holiday home there that architect Richard Naish of RTA Studio designed for himself and his family is much less so. That, of course, was exactly the intention: the home was designed as an exercise in going without, but it still comfortably sleeps 10 in summer or winter. “We wanted to deliver the bare minimum you need on holiday,” Naish says. “It has been a good experiment in living in confined quarters with…

1 Design for the sun. First and foremost, plan the house to get sun into the main spaces, if not all of them – more of it in the winter, less in the summer. Sunlight can transform even the smallest room. 2 Less is more. Minimalism works for small spaces. Clean lines and well-thought-out detailing can make a space seem bigger by minimising visual clutter. We also try to incorporate built-in furniture, which is a great space saver as well as reducing clutter. 3 Link rooms to external spaces. Opening rooms to external spaces is an easy way to enlarge a room with less cost. Decking is a lot cheaper per square metre than the square-metre rate of building internal spaces. 4 Minimise the size of intermittent spaces. Give space…

Londoner Charles Lethaby spent a decade teaching art, sculpture and 3D design after graduating from Central Saint Martins as a product designer in 2004. Then, in 2014, he launched his small lighting design business – and his life has seemed like it has been on fast-forward ever since. He started out with one-off bespoke commissions and partnerships with small interior designers, then rocketed to prominence when his ‘Elara’ light (far left) was selected for the Christmas window displays of Hobbs, the womenswear brand. His range is now expanding and so is his international presence, with ECC spying his work in Milan and being one of the first retailers to snap up his sleek, elegant lights for their Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch stores. Lethaby’s designs include ‘Carina Chandelier’ (top), ‘Carina’ (middle)…

Essay Topic Write about a journey you have made to an architectural site – it could be a new building or an old one, a town or a city or even a ruin. Explain why you went and describe what you found, and what it means to you. Word Limits Open: 1500 Secondary School: 800 Entry Criteria An essay must address the set topic, must be wholly the work of the person submitting it, and must not have been published previously. Submissions Send your entry as a Word document to writingawards@nzia.co.nz Entry Deadline Monday 3 October 2016 Prizes Open category winner: $1500 Secondary School category winner: $1000 Highly Commended: $500* *up to three Highly Commended Awards will be made Judging Panel John Walsh (Communications Manager, New Zealand Institute of Architects);…

WINNER RESIDENT ‘Volley’ chair by Jamie McLellan The ‘Volley’ chair for Resident evolved from experiments into seaming flat shapes into a complex, supportive form. Described by product and furniture designer, Jamie McLellan as “a playful piece”, the chair’s curvaceous internal shell is made from three pieces of plywood. “Their shape and form remind me of how pieces of a volleyball fit together,” he says. ‘Volley’ is designed for domestic and residential settings and has two base options – wooden legs or a swivelling upholstered pedestal. “I love both versions,” says McLellan, “but find the swivelling pedestal particularly fun with its Verner Panton-esque 60s-ish playfulness.” “Making the plywood shell, and upholstering it in a way that describes the form beneath wasn’t necessarily a challenge, but it certainly took some refined skill,”…

Small Home #2 Thurston Studio, Wellington Architect Cushla Thurston Floor area 45m2 In 2006, when Wellington couple Cushla and Richard Thurston purchased their mid-century home in Brooklyn, Wellington, they earmarked the flat, barren space at the rear of the property for an art studio. Six years later, tired of schlepping across town to use a space behind his parents’ Seatoun home, Rich, an artist and film contractor, and Cushla, an architect with Opus Architecture, collaborated on the studio’s design. Within 45 square metres, the couple wanted an open-plan studio they could both work from, a mezzanine level to accommodate overflow house guests and a relaxing space away from the family home. “We created a collection of spaces with different scales within a larger volume to support a variety of activities,”…

1 Give yourself a tight brief. A tight brief means there’s not a lot of room to go off on a tangent and do unnecessary things. 2 Keep things flexible. Spaces need to be multi-functional. The hut’s living room, for example, is a playroom for the kids and a dining room. It contains the kitchen and doubles as a guest bedroom when we have too many people staying. 3 Repetition of form and structure is really important. Here, we’ve repeated the bays all the way through the house, just putting partitions between them to create bedrooms and bathrooms. That’s quite an efficient way to build and means it makes things cheaper. 4 Pump up the volume. A little bit of a cheap trick, but a considered one, is to give…

The building was designed as a challenge: a chance to consider new forms of accommodation and new typologies within one of the most conservative inner-city suburbs of Christchurch. When a tall, thin, aluminium-clad tower rose between Christchurch’s Merivale post office and a supermarket, the locals were quietly astonished. It was built on the tiny five-metre by five-metre site of a former toilet block and its only windows faced south. It defied almost every expectation of what a New Zealand house should look like. Best of all, the supermarket sign metres away says “Fresh Choice”. It was a building designed as a challenge: a chance to consider new forms of accommodation, and new typologies within Merivale village, one of the most conservative inner-city suburbs of Christchurch. It wouldn’t be at all…

Key 1. Lounge 2. Kitchen/living 3. Entry/hall 4. Bathroom 5. Bedroom 6. Desk 7. Storage 1 Rooms don’t need to be as big as you think. JUSTIN WRIGHT A room on a plan looks 100 times smaller than it will be. We find clients run measuring tapes around rooms, and want to make those planned spaces bigger. They don’t necessarily appreciate that being slightly smaller is not necessarily going to impact on the use of that space. And when you increase the size of every room in a house by a little bit, it can add up to a lot more built space. It’s nice to try and do more with less. 2 Design economically. JW There’s a lot of economy in the design of this home and the way…

HOME’s Kitchen Day is an exclusive series of briefings on the latest developments in kitchen design, full of expert advice on how to best utilise the home’s most important space. Get up-to-date in a day with the newest information on materials, hardware, appliances, ergonomics and trends. Numbers are limited to 50, so book your tickets now. OUR GUEST SPEAKERS Sophie Beets BLUM Blum’s expert on new drawer and hardware technology and designing an efficient, ergonomic kitchen. Suzanne Stephens FISHER & PAYKEL Fisher & Paykel’s head of design discusses leading-edge technology and innovations. Nicky Duggan EVOLUTION OF SURFACES The kitchen design expert reports back on the latest developments from Milan’s EuroCucina. Joanna Hoeft STUDIO ITALIA The designer presents her take on the latest European kitchen materials and trends. Shane George KITCHENS…

“The Orange Ballroom, as we called it, had its beautiful wooden floors smoothed and softened by a long history of foxtrots, waltzes, jitterbugs, twists and, in my era, contemporary dance. Built in 1923 in Newton by the protestant Orange Society, it was the epicentre of Auckland’s social shimmies – a major dance and music hall that featured jazz musicians and bands for more than 50 years, particularly popular while US troops were in Auckland from 1942 to 1945. The Ballroom was taken over by a church in 1987, and later became an alternative dance and theatre venue. Performing artists pounced on it – we were desperate for affordable space to create and perform. I co-produced, choreographed and performed in several contemporary dance events there in the late 80s and early…