Practice in Profile Supported by
HMOA BEGAN IN WELLINGTON IN 1997 as HMA, Herriot + Melhuish Architecture, founded by Max Herriot and John Melhuish. They were friends and flatmates: John left a decade at Athfield Architects while Max already had his own business, Max Herriot Design. Duval O’Neill joined HMA in 2002 and, in 2005, he moved to Christchurch to establish an HMA studio there. Duval became a director in 2007, and HMA became HMOA.
The Tāmaki Makaurau studio came about when architect and property investor Matt Pearson answered HMOA’s ad on the NZIA website. Matt opened the Parnell studio in 2016, with Matt Robinson joining him as co-director in 2022.
Here, the founding directors of HMOA’s three studios reflect on their business.
MAX HERRIOT
WELLINGTON STUDIO
John says he took nine months to commit to going into business with me but I remember it as much less. I saw us as two like-minded people on a similar level; I might have had more initial contacts that led to the early jobs but John had more commercial experience than I did.
John and I are both pretty pragmatic and practical, and we often come up with the same approach. We work on projects together but everything is the output of the practice. It’s never been the case that one director has brought in a lot more work than another.
We are both modernists; we like things simple and pure, and there’s a practicality in that. We collaborate on design but we don’t get entrenched in it – I enjoy the early stages, the broad thinking and then I like to move on without getting too much into the detail; maybe that’s partly my personality.
I look back
