Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i Home New Zealand

We hear a lot these days about how hard it is to build or renovate a house in New Zealand. The cost of materials! The cost of labour! The building code! The cost of compliance! The bloody council! It’s all true, of course. Back in 2017, we were bowled by the difficulties we encountered adding a relatively simple 40 square metres to our little shack on the North Shore of Auckland. The addition cost three times what we originally thought it would and came with numerous bureaucratic hurdles. We just wanted bedrooms for our kids, and yet everything seemed to be working against us, from building inspectors to neighbours fretting about a shared driveway. And yet. Most weeks, I get an email or 12 from homeowners and architects. They send…

For a moment, coming in from a bright Auckland afternoon through the timber-lined entry of architect Lisa Webb’s home, your eyes take time to adjust. Slowly, the house reveals itself as you round the corner – a black ceiling, rimu lining and dark blue walls come into relief. The effect is almost painterly, with the hues of an old Dutch master. Colours are warm and saturated. Shafts of light enter through deliberately placed windows and skylights, to exist as almost solid objects inside the space. There are quite a lot of walls. The entire house feels cocooned, pleasantly inward facing, but not claustrophobic. “I feel comfortable in enclosed spaces,” says Webb. “I like feeling my back against a wall. For me it’s a physical sense, the way you feel a…

How did you avoid the high cost of earthworks on a site like this? GERALD PARSONSON We used the old structure from the original house. A normal Kiwi house is timber. This had concrete columns, steel beams and a concrete floor. The old house was done by Structon, who are well-known engineers, so we assumed it would be very robust and strong. But as you know, assumption is the mother of you-know-what. As we got into it, we discovered that the concrete floors weren’t as solid as we had hoped, so we basically had to rebuild them. The wintergarden has three glass sides, but only a narrow glass strip above. Why not an entire glass ceiling? GP— We ummed and ahhed about this. There’s a tendency to over-glaze, and it’s…

Design inspiration comes in many forms. In this case, it’s a striking new display by APT, showcasing the latest in innovative surfaces and technology by the brand, which specialises in architectural products. The industrial-style space features a large island bench at its centre, clad in Fenix, a new-generation surface created in Italy. Tall panels and sample drawers show off the full range of 15 Fenix NTM and NTA colours, which can be used both horizontally and vertically. With low light reflectivity, Fenix is incredibly matte, resistant to fingerprints and pleasantly soft and warm to touch. It’s also durable and hard-wearing –scratches, however superficial, can be repaired thermally. The display also shows off APT’s newest architectural product – ATIM Transformables, a range designed to maximise function and save space without taking up valuable storage space. From pull-out tables…

Project Diagrid House Architect Jack McKinney Location Grey Lynn, Auckland Brief A good-sized family bathroom Rachel Newnham discusses the family bathroom in her home by Jack McKinney, which won Home of Year 2019. What did you want the bathroom to achieve? We wanted it to be a decent size and to include a bath, which is the only one in the house. How did you want the space to look and feel? We don’t like fussiness – we prefer minimal and that includes materials. We also wanted to bring in elements from other areas of the house, so we have black ceilings to marry the joinery and steel-lined hall, while the walnut vanity marries in with the other powder room vanity and cupboards. Jack pulled in the same large-format tiles…

Sam Eichblatt For the sixth consecutive year, the New York-based writer covered NYCxDesign for HOME. How has NYCxDesign evolved over the time you’ve been attending? The US has been shaping its own design identity over the past decade, not just in NYC or LA but in smaller regional cities. It has been really interesting watching American designers dig into their history of modernism and vernacular craft, like the Shaker movement, and develop their own aesthetic. What are you working on that’s stirring your creativity? I’m building a little off-grid cabin on 10 acres of land I bought with friends last year. It’s near a town called Hobart in the Catskill Mountains. Another friend and I are also looking to buy a farmhouse to renovate with pieces by the designers we…

It’s possibly a long hangover from previous, more colourful decades. New Zealand architecture always seems to do texture and materials beautifully, but when it comes to colour, we’re a wee bit timid. Done well, colour is adventurous and bold, but also rational and clever. It can help delineate spaces and function, create mood and texture, and help – rather than impinge – our understanding of what buildings do. So, when Dulux asked me to help judge their annual Australasian awards for colour, I said yes on the spot. Themes this year? Colour blocking is going strong – we saw a number of projects with one colour applied across a whole section of a room, covering everything from the ceiling to ducting and services. Red – in shades of maroon rather…

Tell us what you do and why you do it. We work with companies to develop technically and aesthetically elegant solutions to everyday needs. Product designers have a responsibility as guardians of the manufactured environment – if we’re going to use resources and energy to create ‘things’; they’d better be good. You’ve worked for Tom Dixon and Conran & Partners, and collaborated with the likes of Menu and Resident. What’s a project you can look back on and appreciate? A recent one that’s enjoying success is the ‘TR Bulb’ for Menu. It’s an oversized LED light bulb that conceals the fitting within its spherical form. This means it can be used to transform any standard lamp socket into an efficient yet aesthetically unobtrusive lamp. This has become the basis for…

Three years ago I was in Milan during Milan Design Week. It was my first time to the event and one of my favourite discoveries was the Danish furniture company Kvadrat. The brand’s Milan showroom is down a little alley on Corso Magenta. With lighting company Flos as a neighbour and windows to a small plaza, it’s a very Italian space, albeit with a Scandinavian feel. What drew me to Kvadrat was their seemingly simple fabric designs, which effortlessly balance technology and craft. They collaborate with some pretty incredible designers, too. To showcase their sixth fabric collaboration with Raf Simons, Kvadrat teamed with the designer to present the installation ‘No Man’s Land’. Held in a derelict warehouse in a residential Milanese suburb, an enormous floral display by Belgian florist Mark…

A CLASSIC CHAIR AT CULT One of the quirks of the international design industry is that, while there’s intense media interest in the latest thing, the actual pieces aren’t available to purchase for up to a year. But when the piece in question was first designed in 1947, is there really any hurry? So it is with the cane ‘C-chair’ by Marcel Gascoin for Gubi. A hit at the Milan Furniture Fair last year, where cane made a notable come-back, it’s one of Gascoin’s most enduring designs – though its origins speak effortlessly to today. Back in 1947, the chair was Gascoin’s response to the smaller-sized homes being built in post-war France. He created a simple, elegant and highly functional chair: with a cane seat and a timber frame, it’s comfortable and…

You’ve resolved a small site with a tight programme to create a family home. How are you enjoying living in it? It was pretty overwhelming in the beginning. We had been renting a draughty bungalow where the spaces were larger, but worked less well for us. This house is sunny, warm and super fun to live in. We feel really lucky. Have you worked with CLT before? What are your thoughts on the product? I hadn’t. It wasn’t widely available in New Zealand when I first started thinking about using it – but it was easy to see the potential. The mid-floor is essentially built in a factory as solid slabs of timber. That makes it thin (which allows more height) and solid, which means quiet and stable and quick to…

‘Don’t pack a sad’. The artist’s message on fluted plastic board in the kitchen is pointed, droll. Indeed, retaining a sense of equilibrium was advantageous in this project. Owners Craig and Kristin Wilson built a home after seven years of living – strike that – existing in the worst house on a not-so-favoured street. It was “interesting times”, says Craig, an associate director at TOA Architects, who knows the stats like the back of his hand. The section: 585 square metres, but only 13.5 square metres wide. “The rear 25 percent fell under the drip line of a massive pōhutukawa that we love.” Previous house: 47 square metres – four power points, five lights. Current home: 156 square metres (not counting the wine cellar) uses 43 panels of cross laminated…

There’s a confusion of buildings in this tightly packed pocket of Parnell, Auckland. The dense concentration of predominantly residential properties – some faux-Victorian, some a little undecided – is interspersed with offices and one or two warehouses. There’s very little common language between them. But, like the row of heritage-listed 1899 Dilworth terrace houses it overlooks, this stitch in the pocket has a little more to say than some of the others. Within the brick shell of the old Ford factory, which used to pop out a Model T every 20 minutes, Pattersons has inserted 11 apartments over four discreet, receding levels. Known as the Ford Residences, they share a cobbled courtyard with the neighbouring Ford Lofts. The latter is an extensive refurbishment by Cheshire, the building’s heritage readable in beautifully…

The house high on Dunedin’s Māori hill is almost a spectacle in the native bush. Its Zincalume façade glints in the sun – a silver leaf sitting proud from a wall of variegated green. Its seven slotted windows are like elongated eyes – all the same height, wide open and set into the home’s shiny face. They are hard to read – what’s behind them and, anyway, how did this strange object come into being in what appears to be impenetrable bush? The house by Rafe Maclean could’ve been more of a spectacle if he and his partner, Michelle, had had their way. As a family, the couple and their two teenage daughters have built three homes together – including one in Wellington and one in Wanaka. The girls have…

Why have you released ‘KXN Standard’? While the modules in the ‘KXN Mainline’ are pre-configured, there’s a lot of time arranging the composition to accommodate individual, architectural, and structural needs. These bespoke configurations require a lot of consultation between the client, IMO, architect or designer and the trades. They often utilise one-off parts, manufactured in small runs. KXN Standard removes these costs in conjunction with volume manufacturing. You still get KXN’s precisely detailed and considered kitchen system, with its signature hard-wearing, moisture-resistant materials and refined aesthetic. What does KXN Standard give clients? It offers a small number of tried-and-true bench, tower, wall and island configurations. The modest and functional configurations deliver efficient use of space alongside trusted benchtop materials, appliances and hardware. Can we put a cost on it? The…

Project Renovation of a 1970s home by Robert Railley Architect Daniel Marshall, DMA Location St Heliers, Auckland Brief Reference 70s styling while using contemporary detailing How does the design work in with the rest of the house? It ties into our response of referring to 70s styling, but using contemporary materials and detailing. How did you achieve luxury in this small space (14 square metres)? It’s in the way the materials respond to the play of light. Although the room is dark and moody, light filters through exterior louvres and scatters on the mosaics and illuminates the limestone. This gives the room depth and a luxurious nature that belies its scale. Planning helps too – tucking the WC and shower into separate compartments allowed us to showcase the bath, without taking…

DETAILS Wellington Until 9 June Dunedin 13 – 23 June Christchurch 27 June – 10 July Anthropocene: The Human Epoch Human habitation has pushed the planet beyond its natural limits. Anthropocene, which was four years in the making and is narrated by Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander, confronts how many of our industries, including the building industry, are playing a part in the changing environmental landscape. Bauhaus Spirit At its centenary, Bauhaus Spirit celebrates the visionary movement founded by Walter Gropius in 1919. Somewhere between a school of art and technology, this is where the likes of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Lilly Reich, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee designed the future. A film for devotees of radical thinking and those with a creative spirit. Slim Aarons – The High Life Before…

“I love this place because it’s incredibly peaceful, the way the light filters through the oak trees, which were planted around the same time the church was built. You can feel the wairua in the building, surrounded by our tūpuna in our urupā. The acoustics are incredible – and we have some phenomenal singers in our whānau, including our kapa haka group, Hātea. At Pehiāweri, I think we are entering a cycle of renewal. We are planning for a whare whakairo, and significant upgrades to our complex. St John’s Church Pehiāweri was built in 1888 on land gifted by our tūpuna to the Anglican Church to establish a church, vicarage and burial grounds. In the late 1970s, the church decided the land was surplus to requirements and tried to sell…

In 1961, the Swiss engineer Paul Schaerer joined USM – the third generation of Schaerers to join the family firm. Within a few years, he’d built a new modular steel factory for the company with the architect Fritz Haller, followed by a modular steel furniture system to fit it out with – again with Haller. While it was initially intended for the company’s use, Schaerer and Haller had created a design classic and by 1969, USM ‘Haller’ was in commercial production. The first order of 600 work stations went to the headquarters of the Rothschild Bank in Paris. At the heart of the system is a multi-functional steel ball connecting to stainless-steel rods that connect to solid steel panels in a range of 14 colours. There are no screws, no glue…

The shift to electric transportation is often presented as something worthy, and environmentally friendly. Reduce emissions! Save the planet! Spend more while you do it! Then Jaguar released the I-Pace, the world’s first all-electric SUV, and the first serious attempt by a mainstream car maker to produce an all-electric luxury performance car. It is, in essence, a high-performance SUV, with sleek lines and a leather interior, as befitting its price tag ($145,000 to $165,000). But it also has enormous amounts of torque, from the independent engines driving front and rear axles, and it does zero to 100km/h in 4.8 seconds – 4.8 seconds! You accelerate, and it always feel like it has more – the kind of acceleration that a friend describes as ‘like being vacuum packed’. It has a…

Sustainability, repurposing and recycling has been an ongoing focus of the design community and this year it was even more prevalent. Milanese gallerist Rossana Orlandi had an entire exhibition dedicated to recycling plastics. She also launched the Ro Plastic Prize this year to challenge designers to develop new ways of recycling and reusing plastic. Eileen Fisher’s Waste No More installation confronted visitors with the reality of society’s discarded clothing by repurposing items from the brand’s past collections to create a range of ‘zerowaste’ works, including wall hangings, acoustic panels and decorative objects. Nature was a prevailing theme, with designers looking to water, gardens and, in particular, flowers for inspiration. Natural curves, imperfect forms and textures were seen across the board. A striking example was the new ‘Bulbo’ chair by Campana…

It’s hard to know where to look in John and Heather Hutton’s handsome central Wellington apartment. There are fabulous views everywhere. If you face north west, you can see over the top of the well-ordered wilderness of the Botanic Gardens to Tinakori Hill. To the north east, your eye is carried across the central cityscape and wharves to the expanse of Wellington’s harbour and beyond the Hutt valley and the eastern bays. Finally, to the southwest, there’s the shallow curve of Oriental Bay, the heights of Mount Victoria and Miramar peninsula beyond. Even on a bleak day it’s a wonderful panorama, a capital view, if you will. And the couple’s apartment – one of two they’ve built, perched on top of the other on this beautifully positioned site – presents…

This was a tight site with difficult access. How did you keep to the schedule? Access definitely caused issues with the programme. The CLT panels could’ve been up in three days if they could have been delivered to the site at one go. Credit goes to the builder Mike Greer Architectural and their subcontractors for good planning and management, despite the constraints. Did having the conceptual idea of ‘outer space’ help the design process? At TOA, we always start with an abstract concept or narrative derived from whenua (the people) or tangata (the land). It allows us to connect with a sense of place but also push boundaries. When carried through form and detail, this causes a richness in the story the built environment tells. At Tuarangi, it led to…

How did the Ford Penthouse project come about? Director Andrew Mitchell and I were leading the project team for the Ford Residences when the penthouse developed into a full fitout and interiors project. This was about the time construction was beginning on the apartments, which meant we still had time to get the best penthouse layout coordinated with the rest of the building. It was essentially a clean slate. There were a lot of restrictions around the existing Ford factory and the Category-1 listed Dilworth Terrace houses on the adjacent site that needed to be taken into account. How does the design respond? On each level, the apartments step back and overlook the beautiful tiled roofs of Dilworth Terrace houses, providing a backdrop with black planters overflowing with greenery. As…

What drew you to Passive House design? I had a realisation around 10 years ago that I didn’t know how to predict building energy use at the design stage, and the accuracy around predicting interior comfort levels was pretty gut-feel. I also observed external consultants oversizing energy-hungry heating and cooling systems, so I decided I needed to upskill. At the time my structural engineer was a Passive House designer who introduced me to thermal-bridge-free engineering details, which lead me to train in the Passive House standard. I found it was solid in its integrity with the use of practical building physics and with a German rigour that didn’t accept she’llbe-right bullshit. Passive House design principles make good common sense. Why is there not greater uptake here? Amazing interior comfort levels,…

Guests drank Garage Project beer and wine – including the appropriately named Fun Juice – as well as Seedlip nonalcoholic cocktails. Later, festivities carried on next door at the Morningside Tavern. As well as celebrating the architects, we were delighted to congratulate principal sponsor Altherm Window Systems for 10 consecutive years supporting the award. The winning home – and winner of the Best City Home award – was ‘Diagrid’ house by Jack McKinney Architects. The home in Grey Lynn, Auckland, features a floating concrete roof poured in a diagrid pattern. The result is raw, poetic and fun. Along with the winner, we also announced a number of category awards: Best Small Home went to ‘X-Marks’ by Wellington’s Spacecraft Architects; Best Retreat went to ‘Arrowtown’ house by RTA Studio; Best Multi-Unit went…

AUCKLAND 10am, Friday 5 July, Blum 621 Rosebank Road, Avondale Covering recent trends in kitchen design and some deeply practical concerns – not to mention personalised advice – our Kitchen Workshop is invaluable to anyone undertaking a kitchen renovation or new-build. Bring your plans and your questions, and our expert panel will be on hand to inspire and educate. THE DETAILS Kitchen design remains one of the thorniest challenges in any new-build or renovation. Our Kitchen Workshop assembles an expert panel to cover issues ranging from function, materials, specification, new technologies, future proofing and space considerations. After a short presentation covering a few recent projects by HOME editor Simon Farrell-Green, we’ll open up to questions from the floor; afterwards, the expert staff from Blum will be on hand to offer personalised advice.…