Architecture NZ

Architecture New Zealand is the journal for New Zealand’s architects. For over fifty years it has been at the centre of the profession – keeping architects informed, inspired and engaged with reviews of the latest projects, insightful commentary on key issues and critical discussion of practice matters.

Architecture NZ

Goodbye, our friend

Politics of place in an election year

PHILIP MAXWELL ‘PIP’ CHESHIRE CNZM, FNZIA 28 JULY 1950 – 11 FEBRUARY 2026 • Pete Bossley, Dajiang Tai, Surita Manoa, Christina van Bohemen, Andrew Barrie and Peter Cooper pay tribute to their friend and colleague.

OPEN CHRISTCHURCH TURNS SIX

AOTEAROA’S LARGEST-EVER ARCHITECTURE EVENT TO TAKE PLACE IN SEPTEMBER

MIKE HARTLEY • Lloyd Hartley co-founder and director Mike Hartley is flamboyant, engaging and full of energy. It’s not surprising that his architecture, interiors and project management practice celebrates positive human interactions.

EMPOWERING THE DIASPORA • Mila Makasini explains the ways in which architecture, people, place and culture are inseparably intertwined in his 2025 Resene Student Design Award-winning Lalava’i Fonua.

DESIGNING OUT WASTE: DESIGNING OUT THE SKIP BIN • In our second sustainability thought piece from Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects, Rachel MacIntyre looks at why architects are uniquely suited to prevent waste through design.

THE ENDURING PRESENCE: CHOICE PLAZA (ORIENT TOWERS) • Michelle Wang considers architect Ron Sang’s largely undocumented, bold expression of diasporic ambition, four decades after he designed the pagoda-like tower.

WHAT’S THE PLAN? • Ant Vile considers ongoing changes to the Resource Management Act and asks how we can provide both quality and certainty beyond election cycles.

Design + realisation • Belinda Tuohy discusses the formation and continuity of architecture+ and its founding values – of a commitment to collaborative relationships with clients, coupled with the responsibility to design for future users, the community and the planet.

Work

Student rooming • Jon Rennie investigates UniLodge Auckland Central by Ashton Mitchell and the evolving ethos, scale, location and social architecture of university student housing and the lifestyle it engenders.

Structural timber in the small city • Chris Barton explores Irving Smith Architects’ innovative use of timber in a three-tenancy commercial building for Tinline Property in Whakatū Nelson.

Unveiling the accretions of time • Joanna Theodore examines the meticulous peeling back of layers and reconstruction by Architectus in its careful refurbishment of Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland’s Old Choral Hall.

Tower of now • Jeremy Smith discusses cups of tea, architectural lineages and the ways in which communities enable building in Andrew Barrie Lab’s new addition to Saint Luke’s Anglican Church in Auckland.

Health Design in New Zealand

Building with mass timber

Celebrating 40 years

CARTOON