Innholdsfortegnelse for October - November 2023 i Home New Zealand

“This is my personal thesis in built form,” architect Mary Campbell from Bellbird Architects says of the tiny Rotorua abode that evolved as a labour of love incorporating many self-built elements. Wrapped in macrocarpa that weaves inside, changing from horizontal to vertical boards as it does, there’s no doubt that this urban escape pays heed to Mary’s fascination with tramping huts. There’s a no-fuss, no-frills allure about this simple dwelling on an unassuming site in central Rotorua near the Redwoods. A sliding door covered in a mural by local artist Mark Nobel separates the cabin’s only bedroom from the living area, delineating between the dark haven of the bedroom and the lighter heart of the main openplan space. Surrounding it, a small kitchen, dining, and lounge area fold around an…

FREE-SPIRITED_GLAMOUR_ The Muse palette The Dulux Muse palette is as evocative as it is joyful. Comprising hues predominantly within the mid-tone range, it celebrates iconic designers and design details from the 1960s through to the 1980s, with a particular focus on 1970s glamour. Muse is bold, expressive, and strikes the perfect balance between the colours of postmodern interiors and the emerging hues of contemporary design — it is a palette that at once pays homage to the past and leaps forward with joy at its heart. Heavily influenced by the nostalgia of the postmodern era, Muse is a celebration of modernising the free-spirited styles of the past. “Whilst sustainability is an underlying theme for each of the 2024 Colour Forecast palettes, it’s particularly prominent within the Muse palette as we…

HOME + Colorsteel On a prominent corner site in Eastbourne surrounded by mature trees, the home opens to both sea and hills, and to various outdoor spaces that connect with the landscape — both immediate and distant. “It’s a very low-key suburb with a relaxed seaside character,” architect Gerald Parsonson of Parsonson Architects tells us. “The site contained a small cottage from the early 1900s. It would have been one of the earliest dwellings in the area. It had no connection to the beach — or the street. The clients lived nearby, in an architecturally designed house, but the planning didn’t suit their needs — and they had a desire to be closer to the beach.” They wanted a home with a more casual and relaxed feel, and with a…

“The objective was to furnish the home with a tasteful combination of pieces, creating an ambiance of refined sophistication that complemented the historical charm of the property,” BoConcept’s Cam Dickey says. “The colour scheme we developed combines rich, deep neutrals with antique brass and elements of contrasting darker tones. Select statement pieces serve as focal points, while textural variety is achieved with the introduction of a mix of soft fabrics, natural materials, and polished surfaces.” Together, they offer an inherent depth and tactile interest to the living spaces. The Bergamo sofa, designed by Morten Georgsen and one of the newest pieces in the BoConcept collection, was chosen for the formal living area — a piece that can be customised with curved modules and a round chaise. Here, it was specified…

Leave it to the Danes — the folk who invented LEGO, Google Maps, and Bluetooth — to come up with co-housing. The housing model has been de rigueur in the Nordic country since the swinging ’60s, with hundreds of medium-density developments well woven into the architectural fabric of cities and towns. They’re called bofællesskab in Denmark and, with their combination of private homes and public communal spaces, they’re a solution to all sorts of issues. In Aotearoa New Zealand, we arrived much later at the co-housing party. A couple popped up in the ’70s and Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood in West Auckland opened in 1995, but they were rooted in environmental ethoses rather than architectural or economic ones. In 2016, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei completed Kāinga Tuatahi, a 30-home housing initiative designed by…

In this spectacular alpine setting, where the seasons are distinct and the addition had to offer a deeper connection with the environment, it was a question of how to design both a summer and a winter house — one that spoke to the original building but whose design language was not overpowering, while delivering a powerful spatial experience. “The clients were a couple who had recently retired from farming. They had lived in a large rural home and wanted to downsize. Space for entertaining was a key part of the brief, as was the desire for an increased connection with the lake,” Alessandro explains. “The next question was naturally, how do you relate more to the environment?” The answer, as Alessandro sees it, and as this house now inherently explores,…

Located off a winding rural road that meanders around the lake and connects Wānaka township and Glendhu Bay, this site is a small part of a large landscape. Looking north across Lake Wānaka, the water is punctured by Ruby Island in the foreground; beyond, a series of distinctive peaks forms an alpine canopy around the water’s edge. The Buchanan range rises up in the distance. Behind, Roys Peak provides the immediate backdrop to the south-west. Here, due to the area’s visibility from Wānaka township and its proximity to the lakefront, it was a challenging task to design a certified Passive House that — in accordance with resource consent requirements — could not be seen from the lake but that framed views of it. “The home was subject to tight resource…

There’s nothing about the Wednesday chair that’s vying for attention. It’s a simple piece that takes the bare essentials and turns them into something considered: a stackable café chair — designed for a range of environments. There’s a purity of form that resonates across everything from the studio of industrial designer Lucas Wotawa. In this case, it’s encapsulated in refined details and simple geometries, and the way they fall in space. “It’s understated and pared back, an unassuming silhouette considered through a familiar typology with proportions that offer a new identity,” says Lucas. Made in Italy, the Wednesday chair was developed over a period of three years for Aspect Furniture, through which it is sold in New Zealand and Australia. For Lucas, Wednesday is just the beginning. Next in line…

HOME + Dryden Neighbouring buildings are of varying scale; there’s a new house next door and a row of apartments that overlook the site, so retaining privacy while creating strong connections to the sea was an important consideration, and this was artfully woven into the design by Herbst Architects. At ground level, stacked bluestone introduces a solidity to the shifting form; above it, a series of cedar-clad boxes with finned timber screens marks a departure from the anchored lower level and conveys a sense of lightness, the veiled silhouettes drawing in daylight and becoming lantern-like at night. Using Dryden WoodOil in Barque, a soft mid brown, to finish the timber, the exterior tonality has a certain subtlety and grace about it — the screens serving to visually reduce the volume…

HOME + Borges Design Interior designer Luciana Borges’ clients had opposing ideas: one wanted light tones and neutrals, the other wanted dark, moody spaces, so the sensible compromise was to meet in the middle and deliver both. So began the development of a palette that weaved light and dark together, offering a journey of juxtaposition. The kitchen is where it begins, with what was a small space extended to incorporate an island and more room for entertaining. A white granite was chosen for the island, which sets the tone for the lighter hues; against it, above-bench dark-stained American oak cabinetry divided by the rear benchtop, also in granite, gives way to below-bench cabinetry with a matte finish in Quarter Surrender by Resene: together, they introduce the dramatic chiaroscuro of the…

When the lift doors open into this central Auckland apartment, there’s an immediate sense of calm. A small lobby creates a transitional space and introduces a meticulously crafted material palette that enhances the sense that this apartment is a place of refuge and quiet warmth. It’s an enticing space that unfolds slowly the more time you spend here — small details at first unnoticed offer themselves up one by one. It is the striking views that first capture your attention; in the realms of this building of curvature, there are vistas in every direction, stretching across the Harbour Bridge to the North Shore, back towards the city, and out to the east and west. While familiar, from this vantage point, these views are immersive. The project began sometime before Auckland’s…

Finding the right builder for a project is about considering trust, experience and specific skill sets such as whether the builder has experience in delivering projects of a similar scale or construction methodology. It’s important from the very beginning to ask questions: discuss any potential issues and challenges that may arise. Involving everyone in the project team from the beginning is also important – including the builder, architect, interior designer, and landscape designer. This ensures timelines and inspection stages can be agreed, challenges can be discussed and a plan can be put in place to manage any variations. Choosing a Registered Master Builder means they are backed by a trusted organisation and can offer a Master Build 10-Year Guarantee, which needs to be applied for and accepted before work starts.…

That intrigue ignited a creative exploration that resulted in a similar twisting form; this time, though, the form enclosed a series of indoor and outdoor spaces across multiple levels on a steep, central Auckland site. On either side of the folding form, cedar-clad volumes anchor the building, sentinel-like standing watch and containing the more intimate and inwardly focused rooms. The south-facing site is at the rear of a relatively recent four-lot subdivision in Saint Heliers — a section many would see as too challenging. For Wayne and Lyn Frazerhurst, the opposite was true, and, with the help of their architect son, Mark Frazerhurst, the steep, overgrown site was transformed over the course of 10 years and a home evolved that they plan to live in for the rest of their…

Writers' rooms How does architecture influence New Zealand writing? We spoke to two authors about their latest projects and that fruitful connection between the literary and spatial craft. Andrea Hotere Auckland-based Andrea Hotere is soon releasing her inaugural novel, The Vanishing Point. We spoke to her about her influences and the architectural spaces that helped the magic flow. Portraits Alice Naish HOME: This novel has been in the making for over 10 years. What are some of the most memorable writing rooms where you have worked on this project? I started the first draft at the kitchen table in an apartment in Saint Lukes where we lived while building a house … but I wrote the final outline standing in our laundry, using the washing machine as a desk. I…

In the case of Italian bathroomware brand falper., it is embodied in the concept of the ‘living bathroom’, a notion within which objects such as the Lancetta bath (pictured opposite top) are the enduring heroes. Designed by Lucia Carlomagno for falper., Lancetta was inspired by the unfurling of a leaf, its edges curving gently upwards and outwards, its matte surface deliciously smooth to the touch. A similar concept is embraced by Australian design house Meek Bathware with the kinetic form of its Wave basin (pictured left), which takes motion as its inspiration, the flowing, dynamic forms offering a dynamic yet subtle visual feature. For Vincent Van Duysen, whose designs for Fantini Rubinetti span tapware and accessories, luxury is obtained in timelesness. In his Icona collection (pictured right), he plays with…

The plan for this Tauranga site was simple: take an existing single-storey, three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 1920s character dwelling and reconfigure its existing layout to create an open-plan kitchen, dining, and family area with doors accessing an outdoor living area to the front and rear. “It was very dark,” says Moore Design’s Clayton Perfect, who, on his first New Zealand job since migrating from South Africa, acted as the lead architectural designer for this project. “It was dingy and gloomy. It didn’t feel bright, it didn’t feel warm, and everything was segregated from the rest of the house,” he continues, talking about the compartmentalised nature of so many houses from that era. “Everything was just tucked away from each other. So there was no congregation for the whole family.” However, as often…

Not everything is as it first appears in the quiet streets of Nelson. This house, brown clad and of the ‘don’t stick out’ type, initially looks as if it has been inserted here to await completion. Its ship-lapped cedar appears natural — band sawn and finished with a light oil — and its roof is a simple corrugate almost industrial in its sandstone grey colouration. The home’s low, rectangular shape is capped by a triangular roof, a combination so simple that the architect came to name this project something equally childlike: “House with a hat”. But look at this house — built by Inch Building — for a while longer, and things start to get interesting. Its horizontality is broken by the direction of the cladding, fencing, and corrugate —…

Overlooking the water, the view from this site is immediately captivating. Hobson Bay in Auckland is bounded by Tāmaki Drive and the train line to the north; to the west, the cityscape is visible in the distance, and, to the east, the distinctive forms of the Ngāpipi Road boat sheds are dotted along the water’s edge. It was these small gabled forms that informed the original design concept. The clients spent about a year living in the house as the plan developed, and what was initially envisioned as a smaller renovation became an extensive project involving a complete reclad, structural upgrades, and an extensive interior fit out. That said, everything that could be retained was; a key element of the brief was to change as little as possible — arguably,…

At first sight, the monolithic Carrara island seems out of place among the warmth from timber flooring and cabinetry: like a marbled glacier floating on a tropical lagoon. Yet, somehow … it works. The solid walnut on the walls, the strong brass handles replicated on structural elements on the floating, overhead cabinetry are then followed by the honey-coloured oak of herringbone floors. There is a gentle transition between the opposing colours, which, although based on classical ideas of elegance, have a contemporary vibe that is hard to look away from. Sure, its Japan-architecture influence is very much on trend, but when paired with the brass bling and black partition framing, you get an idea that it is not the result of fashion or flimsy but a more robust design concept.…