Home New Zealand October 2016

This magazine was born from pure optimism: Eighty years ago, Victor Beckett, a sales manager for New Zealand Drycleaners, worked weekends and evenings to create it. In 1936, he launched Building Today, a magazine fizzing with enthusiasm about the trans-formative potential of the modernist age. “In this young country, there is a glorious opportunity for all our people to live and work in beautiful and efficient buildings,” he wrote in his first editorial. Yet despite this glorious opportunity, the homes in that first issue are mostly marooned in the stolid tastes of an earlier era. The modernist revolution Beckett yearned for hadn’t really arrived. He soldiered on, and things got better (although he wasn’t able to dedicate himself to the title full-time until 1951). The magazine urged architects to help…

THOMAS SEEAR-BUDD The multi-talented photographer, architectural graduate and writer reports on living through the seasons in a modernist classic. ( p.98 ). How did you come to live in a modernist gem like this? I noticed the advert on Trade Me and got in touch with the owner Ken Davis. Ken wanted tenants that would really appreciate and respect the house and we wanted a place we could be truly proud of, one that inspires us on a daily basis. Bill Toomath had previously worked with IM Pei and Walter Gropius. Can you see that lineage in the house? Toomath adopted many of the modernist and Bauhaus ideals: firstly, articulating the plan in a way to allow as much continuous space as possible; secondly, Toomath adopted the “form follows function”…

In early September, the Department of Conservation began demolition of one of New Zealand’s most important buildings: the Aniwaniwa Visitor Centre in Urewera National Park, designed by John Scott in 1974. The building is listed as a Category 1 Historic Place on Heritage New Zealand’s register. In 2008, it was closed by the Department of Conservation and left to rot. Scott was a pioneering architect and one of the most important figures in New Zealand architectural history. He designed Wellington’s lauded 1961 Futuna Chapel – itself sorely neglected for a time – and the 1971 Martin House in Hawke’s Bay, both of them Category 1 Historic Places. The Aniwaniwa Visitor Centre was commissioned by the National Parks Board as a welcome centre for visitors to the park. It was initially…

Photographer Patrick Reynolds (a longtime regular contributor to this magazine) and writer John Walsh have created the latest in their series of books about New Zealand architecture. City House, Country House (Penguin Books, $85) showcases 40 of the country’s most interesting new residences, taking a generous approach that not only includes stand-alone stunners in beautiful landscapes (including a house on Waiheke Island by Archimedia, top right), but city homes (like our Home of the Year 2015 at right, designed by Richard Naish of RTA Studio), small homes, renovation projects and multi-unit developments as well. Collectively, these homes make a strong case for an increasing diversity of New Zealand architecture, and show that the days of one-size-fits-all dwellings are blessedly over. It’s an essential addition, we think, to everyone’s Christmas lists.…

The British version of Grand Designs is a hit, but not many expected the New Zealand edition to find an international audience. But now the UK, Poland, Australia, Scandinavia and more are tuning in to New Zealand architecture through the show. “It’s running in eight or nine countries now,” says the show’s host, Wellington-based architect Chris Moller. “It’s a big surprise.” Grand Designs NZ’s second series is now on TV3, and Moller is relishing his role as a frontman for innovative design thinking. “Our generation grew up believing architecture is a social vehicle,” he says. “I see it in the old-fashioned idea of a public service.” 3now.com…

This is what well-designed denser living can look like. Now that Cheshire Architects’ conversion of a 1970s tower on Auckland’s Khyber Pass Road to an apartment building is well under way, the building’s developers, Lamont & Co, are turning their attention to the precinct around it. Led by Pip Cheshire, the architectural team behind SKHY2 has designed a mixture of one-and two-bedroom apartments in three buildings (a fourth, at the site’s southeastern corner, will host commercial tenants) that will turn their backs on the busy street (below right) and be arranged to create a sheltered generous courtyard at their heart. These are far from standard-issue shoe-boxes: some are cleverly planned over two levels, and all will have terraces facing north or west with views over the shared space at their…