Indholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2026 i Architecture NZ

A cornerstone of the Ōtautahi Christchurch cultural precinct and wider Canterbury region, and home to more than 2.3 million items of Canterbury’s heritage, Canterbury Museum houses 25 per cent of Aotearoa’s taonga, with an estimated value in excess of $1 billion. In the seismic era, the Museum’s guardians identified the imperative to save and protect the Museum’s heritage buildings and treat them, in effect, as the first artefacts in the collection. “Canterbury Museum has been on its current site since 1870, when the first Benjamin Mountfort building opened to the public,” explains Museum Director Anthony Wright. “The Museum is actually seven separate buildings, built between 1870 and 1995, that cover more than 90 per cent of the site. The Mountfort-designed heritage buildings, mirroring the Christ Church Cathedral at the other…

I WAS LUCKY ENOUGH TO VISIT HANGAR 4 several months ago, thanks to a site visit arranged by the New Zealand Institute of Architects’ head office. They issued an open invitation and, having seen a presentation on its design by Studio Pacific Architecture (SPA) director Evžen Novák, I jumped at the opportunity. By chance, it was arranged that I would give a lift to a postgraduate civil engineering student who was also attending. He was studying the roads and pipes kind of civil engineering, rather than the structural stuff I had assumed would attract an engineer to see the project. So, on the half-hour drive, I quizzed him about why he was attending – he was “just interested” – and how much of the carbon-conscious approach we would see in…

THE HOUSE DAVOR POPADICH HAS DESIGNED for his family sits on an elevated site in the rural hinterland of Hahei on the Coromandel peninsula. By any measure, this is an exceptionally well-favoured part of the country and anyone owning a bit of it, let alone committing architecture on it, should count their blessings. But the first thing to say about the Popadich House is that its architect and his family have certainly earned it. It must quickly be added that the house is, to cite the instinctive reaction of awards juries to impressive projects, bloody good. (These visceral appraisals are, of course, subject to subsequent embroidery.) Professionally speaking, Davor Popadich has paid his dues. His CV, after graduation from the University of Auckland’s Architecture School – he was brought up…

30–31 October 2025 Takutai Square, Auckland Matt Liggin’s Urban Art Village (formerly Urban Art Week) returned to Auckland in late October – this time in a new setting. Relocating from its previous home on O’Connell Street, the event inhabited the city’s Takutai Square in Britomart, transforming the Square into a lively pop-up village of architectural imagination. For two days, the square was activated with conversation, creativity and construction, as students and recent graduates from architecture schools in the North Island came together to explore the intersection of art, architecture and urban life. Ten experimental installations animated the square from morning until late evening, inviting the public to explore, play and participate. The move to Britomart signalled both growth and renewal. Organisers described this as the first iteration in its new…

In somewhat of a coup for the recently accredited new school of architecture at Otago Polytechnic, Te Kura Matatini ki Otago, graduate student Mila Makasini received the top award at the end-of-year Student Design Awards in Wellington, from a field of 15 short-listed entrants, representing the motu’s five architecture schools. Makasini’s winning entry, ‘Lalava’i Fonua: Lashing & Weaving [of, in, with] people, place, culture’, was one of three projects featuring architectural explorations emblematic of Pasifika cultures that gained top honours at the awards. Highly Commended were Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau Auckland University of Technology’s Amelia Lee Chee for her project, ‘Fale Tupu: An Indigenous Toolkit for Designing Culturally Grounded Living Environments with Pasifika Communities in Aotearoa’, and Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington’s Sarah McLeod-Venu for…

As a Brazilian-born senior lecturer in regenerative architecture at Auckland University of Technology, I saw COP30 as an opportunity to connect sustainable solutions between the two countries I call home. COP (Conference of the Parties) gathers global leaders to assess climate progress and negotiate future commitments, and this year marked the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, adopted at COP21. For architects, COP summits matter in two key ways. First, the high-level agreements from COP can shape national policies, including building standards and carbon accounting regulations directly impacting our profession. Second, the conferences highlight local actions and practical solutions – spotlighting innovative architectural and urban design projects advancing climate mitigation and adaptation. The architecture profession was well represented, with organisations such as UIA (International Union of Architects), CAU-BR (Council of…

I am standing in a grassy field on the outskirts of Lund, Sweden, with my friend Jake, a partner at White Arkitekter in Malmö. A rainstorm has just passed through, squally showers giving way to bright sun. Bees are humming among the wildflowers, and the thrushes and blackbirds have started singing. A large hare bounces out of the woods towards us while, overhead, a flock of geese honks in vee formation. The slow daily rhythms of nature have been playing out on this patch of gently rolling farmland in much the same way for thousands of years, even before the imposing sandstone structure of Lund Cathedral, to whom this land belongs, was consecrated in 1123. A tram glides noiselessly along the field’s edge; behind it a large, low, white circular…

Speaking with Houses is a short book that was published late last year by Routledge in London and New York. It summarises Martin Heidegger’s poīetic philosophy of architecture. Architects are familiar with Heidegger mostly because he wrote Building Dwelling Thinking in the 1950s. Architects build houses; we all dwell in houses. And a very few philosophers and poets think about the houses that we build and in which we dwell together. My book looks at Heidegger’s other writings beyond this single essay. His major contribution was to affirm that architecture is a poetic art: “Man does not dwell in that he merely establishes his stay on the earth beneath the sky, by raising growing things and simultaneously raising buildings. Man is capable of such building only if he already builds…

I recently found myself at Reikorangi, inland from Waikanae on the Kāpiti Coast, visiting the tiny hamlet’s Church Hall. Built in 1862 as the Scottish Kirk at Parewanui west of Palmerston North, it was constructed amid an intertribal dispute and has musket ports in the walls. The church was re-sited twice around Parewanui, then moved to another area in the 1960s, before (finally?) being moved to Reikorangi to serve as a church hall in 2001. Buildings with such stories are not typical in Aotearoa New Zealand but neither are they unusual; our tradition of building with light timber frames has meant that relocation has long been part of our construction culture. Whare were moved in response to shifts in the shorelines of the rivers or coasts beside which they were…

IF YOU ZOOM OUT ON A MAP OF TE PAPA-I-OEA, you understand how beautiful it is… the edges are green, swirling around the foothills of the Tararua Ranges. To the west is the Manawatū River. You can make out the grid with The Square like some kind of compass, messaging survey lines into space. Main Street is a soft mauve on my map, and the colour in summer is gold in the parks, irregular marks of nature. When you zoom back in, you understand why Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson said:“If God had got it right, Jesus would have been born in Palmerston North…” Roads reign: straight, wide, circling, double lane, wide bends, roundabouts, race tracks. So many roads, so few trees, so much mass. It is hard to imagine how…

HAPPY NEW YEAR, READER. The turn of the year always feels like a moment of sensory awakening. We are suddenly thrown into temperatures, smells and sensations that are bodily and anticipatory. We are taking swims in fizzing oceans, mowing lawns fragrant with clippings, eating watermelon slices that exceed our hands. The light feels sharper (aided, perhaps, by the evening’s imbibing), the air feels new and we expect ourselves – as others expect us – to begin again. I find it hard to return to the working world, having given myself over to the summer breeze, the long evenings, the smell of heat on surfaces. As I anticipate that cycle (writing this in November as I am), I have been thinking about the senses, and how much we trust them to relay…

Providing extensive experience across a wide range of markets and disciplines, including residential, hospitality, commercial, civic and education, this year’s Interior Awards jury also features its first international juror, New Zealand-born Koos de Keijzer. Melbourne-based Koos is a graduate of Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects and the founding partner and principal of DKO Architecture. During the past 25 years, Koos has led the expansion of DKO across seven studios in Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and Indonesia, to a team of more than 300 employees. An award-winning architect and urban designer, Koos is known for his innovative design approach and research into housing typologies. His work champions architectural integrity and the development of sustainable communities. Jade Kake is an architect, academic…

Two of the top four awards at the 2025 World Architecture Festival were, in the words of Aretha Franklin, wholly holy: the World Building of the Year, The Holy Redeemer Church and Community Centre of Las Chumberas in La Laguna, Spain, by Fernando Menis (01), and the World Interior of the Year, the Fractal Chapel in Graz, Austria, by Innocad Architecture (02). BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group’s Gelephu International Airport in Bhutan was awarded the Future Project of the Year (03) and Turenscape’s Embracing Flood: Xinjiang River Ecological Corridor in Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province, China, received the Landscape of the Year award (04). Also featuring in the line-up of accolades were three New Zealand projects, each of which won its category: Warren and Mahoney and MJMA Architecture & Design’s Hiwa…

THE ŌTEPOTI BUILDING REPRESENTS A significant shift in heritage interpretation – one that acknowledges both mana whenua and colonial influences. Through a collaborative design process, the development seeks to restore some cultural balance and embeds historical narratives that have long been absent from this part of the city’s built environment. Developed as a joint venture between Ngāi Tahu Property and ACC Investments, the building serves as ACC’s local branch while primarily accommodating staff members who support national operations. The building is located behind a small triangular section of Queen’s Gardens, near the northern lanes of State Highway 1, a short walk from the Octagon. It is screened by mature deciduous trees and was previously an unsealed car park, sloping upward from Queen’s Gardens on the south-east to Dowling Street on…

Supported by The 1970s saw a cadre of leading New Zealand designers – Roger Walker, Ian Athfield and Claude Megson, as well as the older figures such as Miles Warren and Peter Beaven – competing in the creation of highly original work. In the early 1980s, however, many architects’ eyes turned again to the horizon, adapting ideas from abroad rather than developing unique personal languages. One of the most intriguing new directions, particularly for those who still held some faith with modernist values, was indicated by Piano and Rogers’ Centre Pompidou in Paris, completed in 1977. The machine had long been a defining image of modernism. Le Corbusier’s “engineers’ aesthetic” favoured the streamlined forms of the aeroplane and the ocean liner. The Centre Pompidou crystallised a new image of the…

A review and kōrero with Dr Deidre Brown 2 October 2025 Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland The first event in the University of Auckland’s speaker series ‘Ignite. Adapting in the Age of AI’ opened with a keynote address by Sir Ashley Bloomfield, followed by a panel discussion featuring six speakers: Dr Deepika Jindal (HR), Dr Rosie Dobson (Health), Prof Michael Witbrock (Technology), Dr Sean Sturm (Music), Prof Alexandra Andhov (Law and Business) and Dr Deidre Brown (Māori Art and Architecture). The panel was asked, “What are the problems and barriers for AI to deliver its full potential?” The question was aimed at teasing apart regulation (and the lack thereof) in Aotearoa. The discussion acknowledged the need for a nuanced approach to thinking about regulation that could not simply be…