Our Insightful Articles

Anthony Brand meets Groupwork's Amin Taha, discusses the rise of ‘amnesic architecture’ at an Oxford conference about memory and place, and finds several practices using narratives about material traces to counter the trend.

Jeremy Smith had a hectic 2019. Hard on the heels of his Essay from America, traversing several United States schools of architecture, he reports from Kerala, India, as international juror and keynote speaker at the Indian Institute of Architects’ National Awards for Excellence in Architecture 2019.

The unearthing of a single personal letter in the early 1980s was powerful enough to destabilise one of the foundations of Western conceptual art history, reminding us again of the power of printed media to subvert or revise established canons.

One of the many things we didn’t see coming with the arrival of COVID-19 to our shores was the nationwide protest on Queen’s Birthday in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. Sparked by the brutal video of George Floyd’s death – a sickening public lynching – it’s not surprising that so many would want to take a stand against such inhumanity.

Mark Southcombe explores Athfield Architects’ Waitohi Johnsonville Library and Community Hub and finds a building that prioritises placemaking and connections to the urban context.

Some of the intricate furniture and lighting pieces by New York’s Apparatus studio are now available in New Zealand through ECC. To coincide with this, the firm’s co-founders, Gabriel Hendifar and Jeremy Anderson, give us a tour of their maximalist and highly detailed loft apartment.

The people, places and ideas changing our cities one enclave at a time: The Scrap Yard is a small-but-potent commercial development on a back street in Auckland’s Grey Lynn.

Andrew Barrie investigates Jasmax’s new Western Springs College and Ngā Puna o Waiōrea Campus and finds spatially exciting buildings at a dramatic scale but he wonders where all the ‘stuff’ has gone.

Overlooking a sacred pā site, this Dunedin home by Mason and Wales Architects responds to its sweeping views and the needs of a growing family with considered planning and humble forms.

No site visits are allowed at Metlifecare’s Gulf Rise innovative retirement living by Warren and Mahoney. But Chris Barton perseveres and is captivated by a space made in association with Boffa Miskell Landscape Architects to bring back the birds and the bees.

Wellington-based architectural photographer Andy Spain shares his top five houses to shoot and revels in some favourite work stories.

Located on a well-known world heritage site in Penang, the Edison George Town takes its place in a former Hokkien tycoon’s Anglo-Chinese mansion built in the early 20th century.