Innholdsfortegnelse for February - March 2022 i Home New Zealand

Over the summer break I spent time with family and friends in the Ruapehu district, in a cabin my children call the ‘ski shack’. It’s a tiny structure but one whose spaces feel comforting and encompassing. The rooms are small, the gable is high, and the gently creaking timber has the welcoming effect of inducing relaxation. There’s a few books scattered about the place, a rug here and there, and furniture that has seen better days, yet there’s a real sense of ‘home’ in the shack’s minute footprint. After a week or so beneath the mountain, we sought out the sea and found ourselves in Papamoa, in a house of opposite dimensions. Here, extensive spaces merged seamlessly into others — from most, the sound and smell of the ocean were…

“If luxury is defined as superfluous, useless abundance and excess, the term certainly does not apply to Studio Italia and its brands,” says Joanna Hoeft, design and sales manager of Studio Italia. Here in New Zealand, Italy is celebrated for its exceptional standards in espresso, mozzarella pizza, and, of course, design. Studio Italia delivers the latter, proudly representing leading Italian furniture designers. However, the definition of ‘luxury’ within the local showroom is not necessarily what a discerning customer may expect as the brand is on a continuous search for a less formal, more personal approach to interior design. “A luxe interior for us is more about the experience within a space, and the comfort and quality of the furniture, rather than the immediate visual impact. A home where you can…

The Bookseller at the End of the World By Ruth Shaw A&U New Zealand A promising, upcoming memoir of a bookseller who runs two tiny bookshops in the small village of Manapouri in Fiordland and who has led a full, intense life full of adventure and depth. Road People of Aotearoa Photographs by Paul C Gilbert Rim Books This is a stunning compendium of photographs of house trucks and their inhabitants. As a road person himself, the late Gilbert had unprecedented access to a unique and enigmatic subculture and its many tones, shadows, and stories. More than a Roof: Housing, in Poems and Prose Edited by Jansen, Begg, Chester, Hollis, Ratcliff Landing Press A promising, mixed-bag of poems by both established and amateur New Zealand writers on the subject of…

Taking its name from the French word for dragonfly, libellule, BELLE is a performance of air — a space transformed by light and sound within which aerialists and dancers reimagine circus-style performance. In some cultures, the dragonfly is symbolic of transformation; in this performance, transformation is created with sculptural light portals into which performers disappear and then reappear. BELLE, part of the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts, will be held at the TSB Arena, Wellington, from 26 February until 6 March 2022. festival.nz…

Natalie Bradburn WRITER/ARCHITECTURE GRADUATE In this issue you write about an architect’s own home. Tell us about your own living space. I’m fortunate enough to be living in the Dogbox, a house that Patchwork and Spacecraft built a few years back. I love everything about this house, but the bath probably trumps them all. You work for Patchwork as well; what do you think your design gains from writing about architecture? Writing helps me understand a building better. I’m always thinking about what makes a space feel the way it does. Why is this room so wonderful to be in? Why is this other one so darn awful? If you can’t get to the specifics of what makes it good, you go to design something but you’ve got nothing to…

Auckland Arts Festival Our must-see for this year’s celebration of the arts include: Mark Work (at Objectspace) spanning the fields of contemporary jewellery, architecture, design, and painting, and exploring mark making in creative practices. In terms of performing arts: The Unruly Tourists, an unlikely opera about — you guessed it — the family of tourists that caused a news hailstorm in early 2019 due to their behaviour; Requiem, which includes poetry by Bill Manhire, Sam Hunt, Chloe Honum, Ian Wedde, and James K Baxter, and was inspired by the visual language of photographer Anne Noble; Radiohead for Solo Piano (Josh Cohen); and indie music acts such as Johnathan Bree, Imugi ››› + Hans, and beyond. 10–27 March, Auckland, various venues, aaf.co.nz Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts From music…

We chat to Georgia Baker, director of Ottoloom, about luxurious bath rituals and the towels that help create them. How did you come up with the idea for Ottoloom? I’ve always had a love of textiles, and artisan-made products. When I returned to New Zealand after living in London, I was inspired by the beautiful handcrafted designs abroad and wanted to bring these wonderful designs here. Ottoloom originally started with just our beach towel range, but has expanded over the past few years to include more of the thick-looped towels and throws for the home. What do you think makes these towels different? Some of our brand focuses are to produce only organic, handmade, and sustainable bath towels — this is what I feel makes them really stand out. So…

Ken and his wife, Sarina, aren’t Christchurch natives, moving from Waiheke in 2012 for a job opportunity following the earthquakes and upon their return from the UK. They haven’t looked back since, revelling in the warm and welcoming community atmosphere they have experienced since settling there. Sarina Powrie found the north-facing site for their new home while walking her two girls — now nine and 11 — in their buggy around the Port Hills, Canterbury. The hills lie between the city of Christchurch and its port at Lyttelton. They are an eroded remnant of the Lyttelton volcano, which erupted millions of years ago. The natural features of the site are spectacular: the wider Port Hills to the south, the Pacific Ocean to the north, and a view of the Kaikoura…

Earthen palette Choose well for your walls with Resene Zylone Sheen. Environmental Choice-approved, low odour and no added VOCs.…

There is a kind of chilled-out, California vibe going on here. The small, uplit bar beside the kitchen has enough tequila to fuel a small revolution. The background music is hip-hop and R&B, with equal measures of smoothness and autotune. Although the house is immaculately styled and maintained — not a leaf of grass seems to be uncombed — the one thing to have escaped housekeeping is an American football wedged inconspicuously in one of the kids’ bunk beds. Yet not everything here is an approximation of the United States’ West Coast — where the owners have spent significant amounts of time. It’s as if a Malibu pavilion had been lent a Scandinavian palette, some of Martha’s Vineyard’s self-assuredness, and plenty of that Kiwi, laid-back attitude. Given that the house…

Print [Out] DESIGN:01 The latest multimedia abstract print collection from Auckland-based surface designer Briar Lloyd is conceived as a reinterpretation of the lines and angles of Danish architecture. Created from freehand digital illustrations and ink-pen artworks, the Denmark collection is part of her new brand Print [Out]. Pictured here: Aarhus Rainbow, a kaleidoscopic print based on the Your rainbow panorama walkway constructed by Danish/Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson on the roof of the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum; and Palads, an abstract print based on the colourful Palads Teatret cinema building in Copenhagen that opened in 1912 and was then Scandinavia’s largest entertainment centre. briarlloyd.com Fine and functional DESIGN:02 Bonham Group launched Bonham Art & Design in January, with the aim of exploring the fluidity between art and design by curating global…

How would you describe your aesthetic? What makes a KFD Interiors project unique? Our homes are where we spend our time, where we retreat, recharge, reconnect. I’m passionate about creating homes that echo what each client values, that remind them of their journey and enhance their lifestyle. Everything we do is underwritten with a big dash of style and edge. So I invest time understanding clients and their vision before we get to work — ultimately translating this into a one-of-a-kind look, where every detail is considered, to create a home that perfectly suits our clients’ lives, their lifestyle, and, most importantly, how they want to live in the years ahead. The concept of ‘luxe’ is quite subjective; what, in your view, is ‘luxury’ in the world of interiors? I…

The first thing you notice in this new build at Muriwai on the west coast of Auckland is the black and gold kitchen, echoing — unconsciously or otherwise — the volcanic sands of the rugged coastline of this small rural community. It’s bold and organic but it’s undeniably luxe, too. Paula and Ant Ward moved here from Castor Bay, wanting a complete change of lifestyle for their young family. As well as building a home for themselves, they’ve built a separate barn/studio that they rent out for yoga retreats. They plan to rent out the entire property, too, while they camp in a caravan nearby. The couple gave architectural designer Rachel Higgs a brief to maximise the coastal outlook and the sunlight while considering the strong winds. Paula and Ant…

Every Home Should Have One: The Appliance Age in New Zealand By Terry Moyle New Holland Publishers Moyle’s two previous books (Art Deco Airports and Art Deco New Zealand) captured a very niche type of nostalgia for that era when aviation was luxe, design was streamlined, and architecture reflected a very specific type of optimism. In this, his latest tome, Moyle has expanded his quest to focus on a more domestic range of product design: appliances. Thoroughly researched and charmingly illustrated via drawings and vintage advertisements, the book traces all manner of gadgets, their history and usages as well as how they came to define New Zealand interiors in an era of rapid industrialisation — the ’30s to the ’80s. It’s like stepping into an old, untouched, high-end bach as…

The connoisseurs of designer furniture tell us what we’ll be seeing more of in 2022 For many, there’s the pandemic reality that our homes have become the main stage sets for our lives, where we work, sleep and socialise. As we rethink the way we use our homes, the purpose of our interiors evolves, to imbue comfort, calm and joy. Design by nature The minimalist colour palette of contrasting black and white is about to take a back seat, as we start to experiment with enveloping earth-tone hues and organic, comforting textures. “New Zealanders are typically known for our restrained use of colour and a desire to ‘play it safe’. In these times of uncertainty, colour has the power to influence our mood for the better,” explains Sophie Clapson, textile…

Entrance to this house, designed by Dorrington Atcheson Architects, is by way of a meticulously landscaped pathway. The journey takes the visitor from the street elevation, which pays heed to a contemporary rhythm with its black vertical cedar cladding system and screens whose curvature and different heights play with volume and proportion, around a black brick wall into an extensive entrance garden. It’s here the beauty and symbiosis of landscape and architecture come into their own. A large eave provides shelter while a plate-glass window allows a view into the stair void — an area of transition between public and private areas of the home. Here, the slightly irregular circularity of the pavers that guide the visitor to the entry culminate in an alluring geometric pattern. There’s an intentional layering…

It’s almost impossible to know what sits up there in the trees. Maybe nothing? From the street you can see only an old concrete garage and a set of steps that disappear into the bush. The path is slow and meandering, winding past the neighbours, up over roofs — there’s a glimpse over the valley, but still no sign of your destination. You pass under an impressive pohutukawa, round a bend, and past a vegetable garden before slices of a building start to appear. A steel leg — a slither of a thing — standing alongside the trunks of native trees is the first indication you might be in the right place. The initial view is up as you follow that ascending, galvanised leg and realise you are standing underneath…