Many architects and designers take the opportunity of working in their own homes to experiment with untested ideas. Chris O’Malley of Product X Architecture certainly did when he redesigned the kitchen, dining and living room of his family’s 1975 house. He admits he and his colleague of 19 years Mervyn Hunter were experimenting with the centrepiece […]

Kitchens are built-in design elements that are at once highly functional and expressive: typically the ‘engine room’ of the family home, they must also work with the architecture of the building. We review three examples, made of humble materials, whose personalities reinforce the overall design. Photography Simon Wilson. Sayes Stock kitchen, Auckland by Henri Sayes […]

  Architects generally add colour through materiality: mostly natural colours derived from timber, stone, and metal. For this issue of The Design Guide, we were interested in projects that use bold colour in architectural ways. Houses and apartments with colour baked into materials, such as brick, steel, plaster or tiles. Interiors where colour drives the […]

First appearances are deceiving for this Waiheke Island family home by Bull O’Sullivan Architecture, where sumptuous materials form a warm counterpoint to the utilitarian exterior. Text Michael O’Sullivan and Brad Bonnington. Photography Simon Devitt. From the street, this house looks like a utilitarian building, with its long, inclined and cranked corrugated façade and single window. […]

Mark S. Graham describes how to open up the busiest room in the house with flexible thinking. Today’s busy lifestyles mean the kitchen has evolved into the hub of a home. It’s become the meeting place where family and household members come together to share news and make plans. No other room in your home […]