Innholdsfortegnelse for April/May 2023 i homestyle

What brings you comfort when life changes quickly? I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past few weeks, as devastating back-to-back weather events have ravaged Te Ika-a-Maui/the North Island, robbing people of their loved ones, homes and livelihoods. It’s been an abrupt reminder of the attention that desperately needs to be paid to the all-too-real issue of climate change. When I’m in need of some TLC, I sometimes undertake a sort of Q&A with myself — not so much to provide answers to the existential threat as to bolster my emotional preparedness for what life throws at us. For me recently, that’s meant asking myself what I can do to genuinely nurture myself, then actively pursuing those activities. While editing this issue. I’ve also been uplifted by the…

STYLE — Enterprise People love to point out that Aotearoa is replete with sheep. Those inclined to do the maths would find there are about 200 of our four-legged friends for every New Zealand child experiencing material hardship. Seeing an opportunity in this sustainable local resource led pals Olive Riley and Kelly Olatunji to found CommonKind, a social enterprise that fills a common need through kindness. Up and running since August 2021, offering a high-quality homeware item to the public via a buyone, gift-one model and selling directly to community partners has already enabled them to distribute 800plus blankets, and they aim to support another 5000 Kiwi kids in the next financial year. Low-cost blankets tend to be made from synthetic fibres that can pose serious health problems for babies…

CLOTHES QUARTERS PEOPLE — Designer profile After a decade working as a fashion designer in Paris, Marilou Dadat arrived in Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland to run her own small line of accessories and lecture at AUT. A year later, she took up the role of head designer at progressive fashion label Kowtow, where she’s been for the past five years — the last as creative director now based in Pōneke/ Wellington, having taken up the prestigious mantle from founder Gosia Piatek. So, Marilou, what does your role entail? As creative director, I create how each range will look and feel, and what it will say. I catch up daily with my team, who work at bringing that vision to life. This may involve a window installation, editing a photoshoot, fitting toiles [prototypes] or…

HOMES THE PROJECT Interior designer Kathrine McDonald renovated this three-bedroom home in Tauranga’s Te Puna for a couple and their visiting adult children. A mandarin and kiwifruit orchard in Te Puna, a rural enclave northwest of Tauranga, may have delivered the good life a couple whose children have recently left the nest hoped for, but inside, their country home was feeling a bit blah. Built in 2003, the three-bedroom house had attractive, tumbled-brick cladding and the scale was generous, so its owners, Nat and Andy, saw the flight of their fledglings as an opportunity to breathe fresh style into their surrounds. What started as an idea to update the kitchen and bathrooms grew and grew, until interior designer Kathrine McDonald was charged with giving almost every space a contemporary makeover…

One of the most satisfying outcomes of a project for any architect is a happy client, and there’s no better testament to that than when they return to ask for another home. Such was the case for co-director of Strachan Group Architects (SGA) Pat de Pont when designing this dwelling in the Támaki Makaurau/ Auckland suburb of Hobsonville. Pat’s clients have owned their property for 25 years, and he originally designed the building adjacent to this site, where they lived and worked. However, as the couple moved into retirement, they were keen to create a new, future-proofed base that afforded them greater accessibility, liveability and sustainability in the next stage of their lives. Their plot of land is L-shaped, so the plan carved off the existing backyard for the new…

ROOM SERVICES Back in the day, the building that’s now Simon James’ sophisticated new showroom in Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland’s Mt Eden was a mechanics’ workshop. Echoes of this hard-working history retained in the renovation by architects Keshaw McArthur (such as the exposed metal beams and concrete flooring) lend the showroom’s backdrop an industrial edge, against which some of Aotearoa and the world’s finest design now shines. The ample space is set up to host events and customer consultations alongside an evolving edit of lighting, upholstery, rugs and furniture (including a dedicated ‘chair library’, with a table you can test them around), plus an expanded array of accessories to examine. simonjames.co.nz KNITTY PRETTY Natalie Procter of Mina has been wanting to do knitwear for a while, so is rapt to release her…

A rich, earthy scent like no other hangs in the air in autumn, an aroma laced with overtones of ripe and rotten, mulch and damp. This is a season for slowing, gathering and storing — a season of lasts: the last dahlias, the last chrysanthemums, the last leaf to fall. And what is left exposed and revealed to all? The jewel-like orbs of elderberry, hawthorn and rosehip, fiercely guarded behind sharp, gnarly thorned protectors, tiny birds darting between them in a dangerous dance. Berries give themselves for plumping. nourishing and feeding the local beings. Packed full of vitamins, antioxidants and flavonoids, they present themselves as a medicine for the winter months ahead — Mother Nature providing for her wild children. I have never regretted taking the opportunity to make and…

THE PROJECT With Brave Architects and Boyd Cox Construction, interior designers at.space renovated this four-bedroom home in Auckland’s Herne Bay for a couple and their two young children. There was a time when the residents of this house felt as if they lived on top of each other. Now Mum, Dad and their two daughters are doing so in a different, entirely more enjoyable way, after a renovation that’s resulted in not one, not two, but three levels stacked with more than enough room for everyone, the finest design, and family-friendly functionality. Joining the Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland project when construction was underway on Brave Architects’ plans for a new, full-height basement floor containing the girls’ bedrooms and bathroom, rumpus room, laundry and garage, interior designers Alex McLeod and Tomi Williams of…

Stepping inside the 1929 villa where designer Kristina Dam has lived with her family for the past few years is a sensory experience. The color palette of the home on Amager Island in Copenhagen, Denmark is soothing and natural; instead of turning up the colour, Kristina has toyed with form and materiality to create a kind of artistic minimalism that could be construed as Japandi, in which the hallmarks of Scandi design blend with a Japanese sensibility. Kristina’s considerable skill is exemplified in the living zone, which she says was the trickiest spot in the house to decorate. Needing to define a small area in a larger open-plan space beside the thoroughfare to the kitchen, she finally feels she’s succeeded in getting everything fitting together well to create the ambience…

Garden — DESIGN Anyone who works in a creative industry could tell you about the importance of a brief. This singular document is where the client’s wishes are carefully acknowledged and the designer’s commitment to those wishes is written in ink. It’s the part of the process that can often make or break a project. The brief is also a balancing act where both expectations and reality need to be carefully managed. Expectations from clients can be extremely high. But reality? That’s the scope of opportunity that needs to be discovered, always within a range of parameters. And sometimes expectations and reality can fail to happily marry. In the brief Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland-based landscape designer Jared Lockhart interpreted for this Parnell project, his clients’ expectations were clear. They wanted to connect…

Mt Maunganui hair salon Dime Friday has an alluring new fit-out courtesy of interior designer Gemma Chapman and a brief to “Just have fun”. Colour experts, the hairdressers share Gemma’s appreciation of bold, tonal looks; here that’s enhanced by sculptural forms that contribute interesting textures and shadows. Inspired by the front desk crafted from Arabescato Rosso marble, brushstrokes of beige-pink Resene Despacito are lightweight yet energising on the walls (along with a fullheight mural by Jasmine Kroeze, above), while overhead. Resene Sanguine Brown provides depth and visually lowers the ceiling. Linking them is apricot-pink Resene Soulful, rounding out a palette as pleasing as any good hair day.…

Something beautiful to behold in the form of an object you can use, functional art covers all the bases. Bringing this concept to the table, this large-scale ceramic bowl is a recent favourite find and totally to our taste. A collaboration between Tamaki Makaurau sculptor Gidon Bing and the design team at Città, it can be treated as a serving and a decorative dish, earning its keep as an investment piece in each guise. In Gidon’s signature minimal, refined aesthetic and crackled glaze, this locally produced vessel boasts a generous volume for a super-sized statement. When not filling a dish such as this with food, we’d style it as a sophisticated centrepiece on a table, kitchen island or sideboard. It’ll look as elegant empty as it will filled with a…

MAKING FUN Designer profile — PEOPLE “I wanted these pieces to be fun, charming and bold — perhaps because that’s what I desired within myself at the time.” Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland’s Carina Webb has always has a soft spot for handmade objects and the narratives they carry. She says that as a designer, her approach is more around the essence of an idea than her skill level or expertise in a particular held. She loves to be pushed outside her comfort zone and finds a lot of joy in learning and experimenting with different materials and processes in order to make what she’s dreamed up. How did Frangere Studio come about, Carina? I first got curious about stained glass when I was making a gift for my dad. I’d experienced significant personal…

High in the hills of the rural-Auckland suburb of Waimauku, a cedar-clad house stands proudly on its fouracre site. Its trio of gabled, barnlike forms represent unity while offering the functional benefits of differentiation between living and sleep spaces. With complete privacy from the neighbours and views of farmland, native bush and pine forest, this is a retreat in which to embrace a sense of cosy contentment with life’s simple pleasures. For homeowners Samantha (Sammy) and Sam Hayes-Stevenson, this property is the happy result of three years of hard work. Having been living overseas, they arrived in Aotearoa, where Christchurch-born builderby-trade Sam grew up, in 2019. Zimbabwe native Sammy was as drawn as he was to wide open spaces, and when they found this piece of land, they were both…