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29/09/2025

Mid-Century Echoes

On a site tightly bordered by neighbouring properties, this New Plymouth home speaks directly to the landscape that stretches out beyond — towards the distinctive peak of Taranaki Maunga and the wildly beautiful coastline it overlooks.

Designed by KR Architecture, with interiors by Annika Rowson, it channels the clean lines and indoor–outdoor fluidity of mid-century modernism, layered with dramatic contemporary flair. Stretching towards the ocean, the home is separated into two forms: the first, facing the street, houses the private areas, while the second, smaller form extends seaward.

A green roof, punctuated by two ocular skylights, sets the tone for this entertaining space — where the kitchen, living, and dining areas open onto an expansive deck cantilevered over the site’s sloping edge, creating the sense of being perched above the sea.

The rear form rises behind, clad entirely in vertical timber finished with Dryden WoodOil

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On a site tightly bordered by neighbouring properties, this New Plymouth home speaks directly to the landscape that stretches out beyond — towards the distinctive peak of Taranaki Maunga and the wildly beautiful coastline it overlooks.

28/07/2025

Te Mānia is a sculptural and immersive architectural response to the enduring presence of Rongokako. ⁠
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Designed by Stevens Lawson Architects, it recently won a NZIA - Gisborne/Hawkes Bay Branch Architecture Award.⁠
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Located at the foot of Te Mata Peak in the Tukituki Valley on a thin strip of land locked between the revered maunga and overlooking the Tukituki River, Te Mānia is a project of dualities.⁠
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"The angular forms of the Te Mānia Room reflect the rocky outcrops of the overhead peaks, with deep apertures carved out of the building form to frame the views in all directions, emphasising the contrast between solid and void. The Te Mānia Room is the extrovert at the centre of the social and entertaining experience. In sharp contrast the introverts, the sleeping houses, retreat into the landscape.⁠
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“Serpentine in form, the houses draw inspiration from the river they face. The raw and rustic face of the in situ concrete structures tone with the riverbed and guests are cocooned below the earth in a cave-like structure of soft hues and textures," explain architects Nicholas Stevens and Gary Lawson.⁠
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Images: Richard Brimmer

23/07/2025

The office of dreams?⁠
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Queenstown-based architectural duo Alister Brown and Katrina Dravitzki, aka Dravitzki Brown, have long embraced working from home. It was part of their lifestyle well before the pandemic reshaped the way we work for good.⁠
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Based in Speargrass Flat, just outside Queenstown, the pair — partners in life and in their practice — designed a 56-square-metre structure among the willows as both an office and a showcase of their work, and in it, found the perfect work/life rhythm.⁠

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23/07/2025

Project Feature | A Series of Fortunate Events

Until recently, this 1960s home sat squarely at the centre of a generous site in the Auckland suburb of St Heliers. Privacy was scarce, and the arrival was framed with little more than a pair of exposed car parks — an arrangement that left the home visually adrift.⁠
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The façade — clinker brick below and timber above — spoke clearly of the home’s era. Inside, a partial renovation had nudged it towards the present, but the transformation felt unresolved. It was at this stage that Matter Architects was engaged to deliver the project’s final phase — a thoughtful edit rather than a complete rewrite.⁠
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Key to the brief: a defined sense of arrival, greater privacy, and a stronger relationship between house and landscape.⁠
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The solution began with a new stand-alone structure housing a garage and pool house. Positioned along the northern boundary, this acts as a visual bookend — a deliberate delineation between public and private, and the starting point for a sequence of moments that now define this overtly contemporary family home.⁠

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