Enduring Award

Roger Walker’s 1969 Flint House recently won an Enduring Architecture Award in the NZIA Auckland Region Local Architecture Awards.     Judges commented, “This perfectly maintained example of a house from a classic period of New Zealand architecture is a reminder of how fresh, playful and essentially novel Roger Walker’s work was — and still is. In a series of individually-articulated volumes set in a grove of kauri trees,... Read More

URBAN ANZAC

A few years ago I attended an architectural conference in Melbourne. Students from the University of Melbourne School of Architecture conducted a guided tour by bus of their cities newest marvels. The Ashton Raggatt McDougall designed Shrine of Remembrance Visitor Centre, completed in 2006, was on their programme.  It is a new insertion sitting below the Shrine on the city side. Back on the bus, a refined English architect I had been sitting next... Read More

Island Time

My memories of Waiheke island was that at the end of a ferry ride, I arrived at an escape from Auckland suburbia into a rumpled and lushly covered landscape dotted with kiwi baches. A paradise for alternative Aucklanders wanting to escape the city. Now it has been discovered by the wealthy. Its holiday character has changed fundamentally because its desirability has led to great pressure on its limited land area. It is now effectively an elite suburb,... Read More

IN SITU CONFERENCE 2015

  Just as my cellphone needs regular recharging, my creative juices need replenishing. Every two years our Institute arranges presentations for us, from an array of local and international architects. They inspire, entertain, agitate and impassion us. Between the 10th and 13th of February last, this event happened at the Viaduct Events Centre in Auckland and it was brilliant. It’s great to learn how different cultures respond to design issues... Read More

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines.

I’m not a fan of the term ‘petrolhead’. With the new fuels on the scene,  The terms should include ‘dieselhead’, ‘electrichead’ or even a ‘hybridhead’. I prefer to call myself  a ‘car-culturist’.   And it’s with this hat on that I was driven to visit the last ever round of the methanol-blend fuelled V8 Supercars, on the leafy streets of Hamilton. It was brilliant and I loved it. I stayed with my brother, and was also able... Read More