Sydney: William Smart

February 12, 2014, 12:00 pm

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Sydneysiders were astonished in 2009 when White Rabbit Gallery opened in grungy Chippendale – a hop and a skip from Central Station. In what amounts to a generous gesture to the city, the four-storeyed non-commercial gallery, fashioned from an old knitting factory, showcases Judith Neilson’s cutting-edge, politically charged contemporary Chinese art collection and includes a tranquil street-level tea house.

For architect William Smart, 45, working on the conversion was “a dream come true. The idea I had was to make the gallery very connected with the public domain,” says Smart, who was born in Cambridge, New Zealand, raised in rural Western Australia and has called Sydney home for 18 years.

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Back to the future

February 17, 2014, 12:00 pm

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Ask Murali Bhaskar to design a house for you and you’d better invite him over for dinner too.

“Residential projects are hugely satisfying. They are about people and relationships,” explains Bhaskar. “With residential dwellings, you are dealing with personal space. In some ways, as an architect, you need to demystify the clients’ likes and dislikes before you can set out on a path towards developing spaces they will enjoy. I always insist on going and having a meal or a glass of wine, or spending a couple of hours at their current residence to try and understand their complexities.”

Inside Story: Valentina Dias

February 23, 2014, 12:00 pm

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Valentina Dias makes a cracking long black. And so she should; the restaurateur has been feeding and watering Wellingtonians for almost a decade. Her first food business foray was Pudding Lane (a range of traditional handmade English pies and puddings), then Miramar’s Café Polo (much loved by Peter Jackson’s Weta staff and which Dias sold in 2013) and, most recently, the Roxy Cinema and café Coco at the Roxy, where the 45-year-old is one of five partners who have breathed life into the art-deco venue.

It’s the same at her two-storeyed home in the beachside suburb of Seatoun, where the food and drink flow freely. Dias and her husband Daminda share the 10-year-old house with their three daughters, Saama (14), Taara (11) and Ileshaa (9) and dalmation Roxy. The couple bought the section, part of the former Fort Dorset military base, while living in London where Sri Lankan-born, England- and New Zealand-raised Dias was working as a lawyer and investment banker. This was the first new build they’d undertaken.

Sydney: Cameron Foggo

March 3, 2014, 12:00 pm

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Cameron Foggo, a second-generation furniture designer, left earthquake-ravaged Christchurch for Sydney in 2011. “I was based at Belle Interiors, my family’s business, where all my product was on display, and we lost the showroom,” says Foggo, 41. “We moved to four showrooms before my father Colin was able to open up properly again.”

Foggo had always contemplated moving to the bigger market of Australia and the disaster pushed him over the ditch. Despite the change of scenery, he uses the same Christchurch manufacturers his family has long favoured for his prized Nonn label (the name was inspired by the phrase ‘no nonsense’). His first collection comprises sofas, tables and chairs that blend a timeless mid-century aesthetic with an inviting 21st-century comfort.

The English Rose

March 11, 2014, 1:00 pm

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Bridie Hall’s life seems just so, well, romantic. After completing a Bachelor of Design at Unitec in Auckland in 2000, she was whisked off to London by a friend who thought her horizons needed broadening in the Big City. Once there, she found an apprenticeship with a mural painter and started painting. After a couple of years, she went out on her own and focused on homewares, handmaking découpage plates and intaglio boxes at her kitchen table.

In 2008, Hall formalised her homewares bent by joining architect and urban designer (and altogether dapper-sounding) Ben Penreath in his store, Ben Pentreath Ltd., in Bloomsbury’s Rugby Street. Nowadays, the shop is named Pentreath & Hall and Hall oversees the day-to-day running of stock, staff and exhibitions. In her studio above the shop, the 35-year-old continues to produce Bridie Hall at Home designs, including obelisks and decorative geometric shapes. Her home is a semi-detached Victorian house in Islington that she shares with her partner Andrew Thornton, miniature poodle Max, cat Albie and tortoise – yes, a tortoise – Winston.

Sydney: Caroline Choker

March 13, 2014, 1:00 pm

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The Grounds of Alexandria made headlines last year when two beloved residents of its petting zoo, Kevin Bacon the pig and Bradley the lamb, were snatched in the middle of the night. They turned up three weeks later in Victoria and were returned to what’s been dubbed a mega-café.

“They’re not quite the same but hopefully they’ll settle down,” says Caroline Choker, 35, who helped create the look of the ground-breaking enterprise co-owned by her brother Ramzey. The Grounds, which occupies a former pie factory in industrial Alexandria, incorporates a coffee-roasting facility, café, bakery, kitchen garden, chicken run and children’s playground. (Recently, The Grounds grew some more with the addition of a pub on site called The Potting Shed.) What surprised everyone, though, is how much people love the transparent design that allows a peek into the mechanics of roasting coffee beans, baking, cooking and so on.

Urban legend

March 26, 2014, 1:00 pm

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The Milieu in which architect Alejandro Haiek works is one not familiar to all Antipodeans. Based in Caracas, Venezuela, he focuses on the renewal of unused spaces in impoverished urban neighbourhoods all over the world. He started out almost 20 years ago, with co-collaborator Eleanna Cadalso. Under the auspices of their studio, Lab.Pro.Fab, and in conjunction with community groups, they have repurposed vacant lots and parking buildings into community centres and cultural and sporting complexes, all the while making the spaces relevant to the people that live near them. A recent project, Tiuna el Fuerte Cultural Park, transformed an abandoned area into a multi-use public space populated with recycled shipping containers. It won first prize in the International Festival of Architecture of Barcelona and the International Award for Public Art presented in Shanghai, China, last April.

In April, Haiek will come to New Zealand as Elam’s International Artist in Residence. The programme at the art school of The University of Auckland invites several cultural practitioners each year to spend eight-week stints at the school; while Haiek is here, he will work on an architectural project in post-earthquake Christchurch.

Designed for living

April 1, 2014, 1:00 pm

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Simone Haag, design and communications manager for Hecker Guthrie, lives in Melbourne with her husband Rhys Haag in a stunning, Scandanavian-inspired, 1960s cottage to be featured in the next issue of Urbis. Even though she lives and breathes design, it hasn’t always been that way; the 34-year-old spent six years globe-trotting and thrill-seeking before laying down roots in Melbourne. We chatted to Simone about her career trajectory in the design world and got some interior design tips.

Urbis: Where did your passion for design come from?

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A fashionable life

April 8, 2014, 2:00 pm

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The juggernaut that is Todd Selby shows no signs of slowing down. The genius behind The Selby, the site that features photographs of creative people in their own environments, has as many as 100,000 visitors each day; Selby has collaborated with Sony, Louis Vuitton, American Express and Fendi on campaigns and products. Now his third book, Fashionable Selby, is out. It features the New Yorker’s signature photographs – idiosyncratic, colour-soaked shots of quirky characters – and interviews with designers, stylists and makers. It’s gorgeous and covetable, and makes us at Urbis HQ want to live a much more fashionable life. We caught up with Selby and asked him about his latest publication.

Urbis: What qualities did the people included in the book have to have?

A good yarn

April 14, 2014, 2:00 pm

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The concept of making large-scale knitted objects came to Jacqui Fink in a vivid and fervent dream.

“I was told to knit huge blankets,” explains the Sydney-based founder of knitted textile label, Little Dandelion. “The message was as loud as it was profound and I didn’t question it at all.”  

The new boys' club

April 23, 2014, 2:00 pm

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George Wilkins and William McCallum are lads. They make things: practical things like desks, storage units, swings and paper rollers, all of which are honest, decent and refreshingly uncomplicated. They work hard too. And they have so much on that they’ve taken on one part-time and two full-time staff members to help with the workload.

“Sometimes we end up working seven days a week for a few weeks in a row then have a week off so George can study,” says McCallum, 23.

Wellington: Sam Kebbell

April 28, 2014, 2:00 pm

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Part architect, part proselytiser, Sam Kebbell has plenty to say about Wellington’s urban design. “We have a lot of really good, old and modernist buildings. The stuff by Bill Alington, Jim Beard, Bill Toomath– some of it’s pretty brutal but it’s beautifully done,” the 41-year-old says. “But there’s not enough new, interesting work going on. The discussion has to change… if we talked about architecture like we talk about rugby, we’d have the most important architecture in the world.”

It’s something Kebbell (who studied at Harvard University, worked in Europe and the USA before returning to New Zealand and is now working on a PhD from RMIT in Melbourne) indoctrinates in his architecture students. He’s taught at Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Architecture for 12 years and, each year, he gives his thesis students an area or town in New Zealand to reimagine.

Designer profile: Tomi Williams

May 4, 2014, 2:00 pm

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Tomi Williams is the owner of a rather spectacular Mt Eden, Auckland, home featured in Urbis Issue 79. With an interior design company and three young children, the 40-year-old spends her days getting the kids off to school, visiting sites, putting together colour schemes, and strumming up plans for clients’ homes.

The Auckland-native and her husband Gareth spent 10 years abroad in London, Sydney and Singapore, where Williams worked in marketing. It wasn’t until after returning home to Auckland in 2007 that Tomi enrolled in a part time course at Nanette Cameron School of Design.

Southern Man

May 7, 2014, 2:00 pm

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Will Lewis has spent as much of his life in the water as he has on land. The architect grew up on Dunedin’s renowned surf beaches and is a keen surfer still, but it’s not just his hobby that keeps him out to sea – much of his work has involved designing and implementing large marine engineering systems. It is highly specialised work that took Lewis overseas and back again for many years but, nowadays, his small studio’s focus is on residential and environmentally sustainable architecture. Urbis caught up with the 35-year-old on a sunny Dunedin day to talk about his varied career.

Urbis:You completed a diploma in draughtsmanship in 1999 but, a few years later, returned to university to become an architect. Why?

Inside story: Juliette Hogan

May 11, 2014, 2:00 pm

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Juliette Hogan has a brand-spanking-new kitchen and she’s pleased as punch.

“The kitchen is all white, black, exposed plywood and brass accents. I’ve got brand-new Fisher & Paykel appliances; it’s looking amazing,” explains Hogan, who is know for her clean, crisp clothes made from lovely fabrics and interesting prints. “I’d love to do my bathroom next; it’s addictive, this whole renovations game, although slightly stressful.”

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Wellington: Robert Leonard

May 22, 2014, 11:00 am

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Robert Leonard has not been living in Wellington long but he’s a convert.

“I adore Wellington,” he says. “People here are affluent and educated but also rather bohemian, and it’s not big enough to get cliquey. I like that.”

Wellington: Rebecca Asquith and Tim Wigmore

May 26, 2014, 11:00 am

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Every room in Rebecca Asquith and Tim Wigmore’s Miramar home has been relinquished to their craft. In the garage sits all the heavy machinery; in the spare room, packing and postage is organised; the living room makes for the perfect showroom; and the attic (via steep stairs) is where Asquith, known for her Nectar pendant lights, works.

“We’ve always shared a workshop space and office,” says Asquith, 33, who moved to Wellington from Taranaki when she finished school. “About three years ago, we realised that we could be sharing the business side of things too – it just made sense.”

Architect profile: Shelley Indyk

May 29, 2014, 9:00 am

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Shelley Indyk is the architect behind a lavish, Japanese-inspired, New South Wales house to be featured in Urbis Issue 80. The Sydney-based architect established her practice, Indyk Architects, in 1998 after spending three years working in Jerusalem. 

We chatted to Indyk about the challenges surrounding the New South Wales home, working overseas and returning to Australia.

Architect profile: John Henry

May 29, 2014, 8:43 pm

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John Henry has a bad habit: collecting. The self-proclaimed addict lives in Melbourne with an  impressive collection of architecturally designed chairs and an enviable art collection. You’ll have to wait to read about the architect’s home in Urbis Issue 80, but in the meantime, read about what inspires Henry in his architecture practice, John Henry Architects, and about his prized possessions.

Urbis: What does your work involve?

Homeowner profile: Max Patte

June 3, 2014, 2:00 pm

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Max Patté, 37, lives in a 1920s’ bungalow in Wellington’s Island Bay that features in Urbis Issue 80. The englishman bought the home, which is adorned with many of his life-sized glass-reinforced concrete sculptures, in 2012, six years after arriving in New Zealand. He makes his works, including the one that sits on Wellington’s waterfront, at Weta Workshop, where he manages the sculpture department. We asked him about life as an artist and working in the movies.

Urbis: How did you come to be a sculptor?