HOME New Zealand

Paul Webber— There was originally a little red Fibrolite house on the site that my aunt bought in 1979. My wife Sue and I have been going there for holidays since about 1981 and our kids, Tim and Rachel, have grown up going there every year for holid

We’re a little torn about Auckland’s newest and largest piece of art. ‘Work No. 2950: WHATEVER’ by the British artist and 2001 Turner Prize winner, Martin Creed, does exactly what it says on the tin – the word “WHATEVER” flashes at the city in huge n

When I lived in Berlin, one of my favourite spots in the city was a Korean hole-in-the-wall called Angry Chicken. A dark little place lit by a neon sign, the fried chicken was always cooked to perfection – fresh, hot, crispy. Punters picked their pre

Most great cities around the world have at least one iconic public space: a square or meeting place where all the best aspects of civic life play out. Great public spaces provide backdrops for festivals and celebrations, act as meeting points for fam

Tell us a little about yourself and your background. I’ve always been fascinated by artists and their ability to distill the ideas and issues of our time into powerful statements. Through gumption, luck and good counsel, I parlayed this interest into

It couldn’t be more simple. The ‘Pressed’ chair by Harry Thaler is made from one sheet of 2.5mm aluminium, into which the outline of the chair is cut, and reliefs pressed. The chair is shipped flat, with its four spread-eagled legs appearing for all

As featured in HOME (October/November 2008) and the recipient of an NZIA National Award in 2009. Architect Adam Mercer and his team created three apartments for multi-generational living on a site near central Hamilton. The architects designed large,

Four years after the opening of the combined Govett-Brewster Art Gallery & Len Lye Centre, the spectacular stainless-steel addition by Patterson Architects, the downtown West End Precinct is buzzing. It’s the perfect weekend getaway – you won’t even

What do you do with the drunken sailor? In, it seems, you get him to pour your concrete – at least, that’s the story Matt Arnold offers for the wonkiness of the original floors at 71 London Street, a former ship chandlery now serving as the studio of

If a movie director was scouting for the perfect, archetypal painter’s studio, they’d be hard pressed to find anything better than Cat Fooks’ space in Onehunga, Auckland. On the ground floor of a former primary school building, the dilapidated timber

Villa renovation for a couple Space Division Ponsonby, Auckland The renovation was a long-time coming: Marc Lithgow of Space Division did his first scheme for his clients Raymond O’Neill and Christopher Mallillin more than nine years ago. He’d even

Addition to update a 1950s bach to a family home Megan Edwards and Allan Eng, Megan Edwards Architects Beach Haven, Auckland HOME editor Simon Farrell-Green and his wife Hannah Kidd bought their first house in Beach Haven in 2011. The original house

House in the vines Bonnifait + Giesen, Atelier Workshop Architects Hawke’s Bay Respond to the landscape and design a home for rest, work and play Sometimes, strict covenants can be a blessing in disguise. When architects Cecile Bonnifait and William

In recent years, aspiring first-home buyers in Auckland without a million or two to spend have been faced with a stark choice: move out or give up. In doing the former, some found a lifestyle that turned out to be better than the one they’d left behi

A modest home and a generous cabin, this is a stripped-back design for PAC. Talk us through its workings. SAROSH MULLA We don’t believe that money should be a barrier to good design. PAC Studio has a reputation for making obsessively detailed houses,

“A paddock with grapevines on it” is Stuart Gardyne’s description of the site in Marlborough’s Omaka Valley, in which this refined yet unpretentious house is found. There are views of the mountains, and neat, regular rows of vines. A few olive trees

When Ben and Dulia Daly moved back to Dulia’s home town of Christchurch, it wasn’t to the leafy suburbs and wide streets of the city. Instead, they moved back to her family farm, Arborfield, on the Canterbury Plains, a half-hour drive from the city –

The privilege of living in Central Otago’s dramatic landscape often means making design compromises. Subdivisions in the region tend to have strict covenants – usually requiring gabled roof lines and the use of stone, all of it solidly anchored to th

Ben Lee had just finished building four houses on Marine Parade in Mount Maunganui. He was tired. His wife Nicky discovered she was pregnant with the couple’s third child. Suddenly, the smell of grass and the thought of a large section and proximity

There’s something in the New Zealand art world’s water at the moment. Maybe it was the centenary of Colin McCahon’s birth in 2019 that kick-started it, but the steady stream of exhibitions looking to the past to help us understand our contemporary mo

How did the project with Ruth Buchanan come about? Ruth is an artist we know well. We commissioned a new work by her for an exhibition at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane in 2015. Ruth was an important sounding board for us when thinking about

Ruin & Redemption takes you on an emotional roller-coaster with its exploration of abandoned, ruined and repurposed architectural spaces across the globe. Thankfully, the bitter tragedy of lost treasures is countered by the sweetness of triumphant re

“I’ve been a town-rat since I was 13 or 14. The fancy girls from my school went to Newmarket. But if you didn’t have money, you could hang out on K’ Road, where there’s less predictability, a bit of character and surprises to be found in nooks and cr