Category Archives: Interiors

Tak­ing aim

May 27th, 2010
Hous­ing two advert­ising agen­cies in one build­ing, albeit under the same par­ent com­pany, can provide a few design chal­lenges. RTA Stu­dio recently under­took such a pro­ject with AIM Prox­im­ity. Pho­tos: Becky Nunes. Advert­ising agen­cies have had a num­ber of hey­days – the 50s, the 80s (up to ’87, of course), per­haps the late 90s and early 00s (up to ’09, per­haps). [...]
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Mod­ern Opera

May 14th, 2010
Opera Kit­chen, bring­ing together the best of the Hawkes Bay. Pho­tos: Brian Culy. Cover story from issue 106 with addi­tional images. Some wag once declared that music with din­ner is an insult both to the cook and the viol­in­ist. That’s ok, because at Opera Kit­chen the music is next door, in the big room – the refur­bished [...]
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Mak­ing More of Motif

March 26th, 2010
Xsite Archi­tects’ adven­tures in sym­bol­ism at the John Kinder Theo­lo­gical Lib­rary. From ProDesign 105 with addi­tional images and drawings. Words: Michael Bar­rett Images: Simon Devitt Fraught with dis­aster is the road of cul­tural motif woven with build­ing design. If you get it wrong, there’s a def­in­ite risk of com­ing across as pat­ron­ising and, at worst, insult­ing. [...]
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Clin­ical Trials

March 11th, 2010
Breed­ing an atmo­sphere of good health at a new woman’s health clinic. Pho­tos: Emma-Jane Heth­er­ing­ton. (From ProDesign 105 with addi­tional draw­ings and photos.) Med­ical clin­ics, well-worn places where the lino wraps up the walls and the tang of dis­in­fect­ant hangs heav­ily in the air. In the wait­ing room it’s hot, too hot, and the car­pet is as [...]
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With Bells On

February 18th, 2010
Wingate & Farquhar’s long, lin­ear form for a New Zea­l­and com­pany steeped in tra­di­tion. Words: Anthony Coates. Images: Simon Devitt. (From ProDesign 104, with addi­tional images). The day the tea ran out, Reporoa, Octo­ber, 1993 – I’d decided to spend the day read­ing a novel on a sun-drenched couch while drink­ing cups of milky, sug­ary tea. From memory, the nov­el­ist [...]
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Inter­view: Jasmax's Tim Hoo­son & Nick Moyes

January 25th, 2010
Max in, Max Out Jas­max were respons­ible for both the base build­ing and the interi­ors at the recently com­pleted NZI Centre. ProDesign spoke with two lead archi­tects about the motiv­a­tions for the 5 green star-rated building. Inter­view: Michael Bar­rett. Pho­to­graphy: Simon Devitt. From ProDesign, issue 104 (with addi­tional images).
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Revis­ing History

December 22nd, 2009
A visual tour of Steph­en­son & Turner's recent lec­ture theatre revi­sion at the Uni­ver­sity of Auckland's Bio­logy Building.
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Where we Work

November 19th, 2009
For­ging On – A Steel­works Home for a Graphic Foundry (and its sneaker collection). Words: Michael Bar­rett. Pho­to­graphy: Phil­lip Simpson. Ok, call me totally super­fi­cial. The reason I really like Switch's new work­space at the Steel Works is because it has really cool stools. Yes, those ones –the Pantone-referencing custom-made wheelie stools that glide so eas­ily across the über-smooth, newly [...]
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Min­istry of Design for Leo Burnett

October 29th, 2009
Per­spect­ive, Pen­cils and Personality Words: Michael Barrett Later on I felt bet­ter about being lost – well, after I vis­ited Wiki­pe­dia, and dis­covered that Treng­ganu Street is some­times referred to as “the Pic­ca­dilly of Chinese Singa­pore”. Didn’t feel much bet­ter about run­ning late, though. Noth­ing worse than being late for a meet­ing, being on the right street, but being unable [...]
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Math­ieu Lehan­neur at the Laboratoire

September 22nd, 2009
LaboBrain - French designer Mathieu Lehanneur at the Laboratoire
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