At a factory 20kms inland from Venice, after searching for almost four years, Mark Todd found the perfect glazed brick. It changes colour all day, every day. Under the morning sun, it’s a gleaming emerald green, like a summer walk to Karekare Falls. As the day unfolds, it’s forest green, then dark olive, then almost black — the colour of a midwinter slog through Great Barrier’s bush. There are glimmers of Whatipū greys, and fleeting moments of Waiheke navy and indigo.
Soon, 150,000 of these iridescent green-glazed bricks will adorn a new landmark building in Tāmaki Makaurau, known, appropriately, as The Greenhouse.
For Mark, the man behind this development, the quest to deliver the 101-apartment building just off Ponsonby Road was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a chance to bring the people…