Table of contents for Interior Mar/May 2017 in Interior

It is fair to say that humour and whimsy are not the most relied upon emotions in the interior professional’s toolbox. It is more common to relegate any blatant playfulness into very defined spaces: wherever children might roam, workplaces with Silicon Valley aspirations, themed hospitality spots and, from time to time, corporate restrooms. Sure, when the project manager gets involved, that spreadsheet line for ‘fibreglass mule and rabbit for ceiling décor’ (see p.26) is most likely the first to be stuffed into the cost-cutting guillotine. Yet, as we see in this issue, that is not necessarily the most sensible beheading. Projects like Seashore Cabaret (p.26), Whoa! Studios (p.36), the pun-tastic Watt Tower foyer (p.74) and the every-growing servings from the QT Hotel chain (p.71), show that bouts of interior irreverence…

A temporary installation by Auckland-based design company, Alt Group, was recently awarded the prestigious Pinnacle Award in spatial design – as well as a Judges Choice Award – at the AGDA (Australian Graphic Design Association) Design Awards 2016 for their POP Marble Run project. The installation was originally designed as part of Auckland Council’s POP initiative, which aims to integrate art into the everyday lives of Aucklanders through a series of temporary artworks. Alt Group’s Marble Run is an eight metre long double-sided steel wall featuring a toolkit of magnetic parts that can be used to build custom marble runs by participants. Furthermore, the wall is programmed with a spectrum of unique sounds – created in collaboration with local musician SJD (Sean James Donnelly), known for his mix of electronica,…

THEY MAY have only moved around the corner, but Warren and Mahoney have come a long way from its previous dark and enclosed office on Victoria Street to arrive at these glitzy new digs in Wynyard Quarter. The offices are encased inside the Mason Bros building, an old shipping warehouse that most recently housed America’s Cup mast-makers Southern Spars. The design makes sure to reference the history of the building, while still presenting a bold new storefront for the architecture firm. A reflective gold glass box envelops the working spaces on the upper floor and appears to hang above the lower floor, to evoke the idea of a ship in a bottle. The soft light quality through the saw-tooth roof was a key driver for the design, explains architect Blair…

You are greeted at the entry of QT Hotel by the ‘director of chaos’, a Gothic pixie in a trench coat with a black beret, and guided into an art-encrusted lobby. This highly curated arrival experience allows for an easy immersion into the bohemian vitality on offer. In line with a general movement towards personalised luxury travel, QT Hotels and Resorts have grown into a dynamic, if not intriguing, brand in the Australian boutique hotel market with six hotels across the Tasman. By the end of 2017, QT is expected to have expanded into New Zealand with QT Museum Wellington, followed by QT Queenstown and there are rumours of location hunters roaming Auckland for a potential central development. As such, the brand is promising their signature brand of designer interiors…

Where I am working Awesome HQ, a co-working space in central Christchurch operated by the Ministry of Awesome. It’s a place to connect with a community of like-minded people who are passionate about what they do. There are project managers, web designers, film makers, entrepreneurs and more. What I am reading (architecture) Super Light – Lightness in Contemporary Houses by Phyllis Richardson. It explores lightweight construction, low energy design and ways to create architecture that simply ‘touches the earth lightly’. I love flipping through pages of architectural photographs that capture various expressions of lightness, as well as reading about each project. What I am reading (entrepreneurship) Chapter One by Daniel Flynn, co-founder of Thankyou, a social enterprise geared 100 per cent for social impact. All of their profits fund aid…

According to the World Economic Forum, how we work will have to change dramatically in order to keep up with the technological advances of the next three years. So how do we keep up? In order to answer this question, CoreNet has gathered together industry leaders and innovative thinkers from around the world to speak at this year’s symposium, which is entitled Humanity and the Machine. “Whether the technology excites or scares you, one thing that is clear is it is here,” says CoreNet Chapter Chair Rod Aitken. “The World Economic Forum claims within three-five years there will be significant changes in the way we do things. They have said that one third of all skill sets will be replaced by new ones by 2020, which seems awfully close. The…

New Zealand’s top awards geared specifically for the commercial interior sector, Interior Awards, are currently accepting entries. The programme, run by Interior magazine, awards projects in nine different categories: retail, hospitality, workplace (up to 1,000m2), workplace (over 1,000m2), civic, installation, emerging design professional, craftsmanship and student. Finalists and winners, and their projects, along with the teams that have delivered these projects, will receive considerable media recognition. Some winners will also compete for trophies and prizes. The Interior Awards entries close on 3 May 2017, and the highly-anticipated awards night is scheduled to take place on 22 June. interiorawards.co.nz…

360 ST-JACQUES, MONTRÉAL “The mixed programme was defined architecturally through the translucency between zones.” Henri Cleinge Some might say it’s hard to go wrong when you are designing an interior that is already beautiful, and that is true to an extent. But to produce really spectacular results in such a space is actually terribly difficult. It requires a lightness of touch and a precision in design that isn’t easily or commonly found. Henri Cleinge’s firm has carried out one such project in the design of the new Crew interior in Montréal. Crew is a young innovative tech start-up, and naturally, had a suitably disruptive view of what their headquarters should be when they approached Cleinge. The project has a hybrid programme based around co-working office space and hospitality, all set…

You have been involved in event, exhibition, hospitality, performance, residential and other forms of design. Is there a common thread? In a sense I don’t see the different kinds of projects as different disciplines, but rather different applications of spatial design practice. What links them is the consideration of time – they are all forms of temporary dwelling or inhabitation. Residential design is probably the longest cycle of inhabitation, but if you think of it at the scale of a lifetime, it is still temporary. If you look at this at the scale of a day, it’s like a narrative, or if you take a longer period of time, it’s more like a repeated cycle. As a spatial designer, my first task is to identify these experiential narratives and cycles…

IT IS HARD to think of a more apt name for Whoa! Studios than the moniker it has been given. The initial reaction when entering the complex is one of astonishment – even for someone a couple (ahem) of decades past the age of the intended audience. Seemingly rising out of nowhere in Henderson’s backwater industrial zone, the ‘family destination’ was created using the bones of a tractor factory that stood on the site since 1955. Founder David Sutherland bought the building, after making his fortune selling a technology company he ran from his West Auckland garage, with the intention of creating something good for the community. The resulting complex does just that, providing Henderson with an impressive drawcard, a fine dining restaurant (called The Grounds) and a happy escape…

When New Zealander Briar Hickling moved to Shanghai in 2009, she never expected she’d still be living there to this day. As luck would have it, the interior designer, who graduated from Wellington’s Massey University, met her current business partner while working at Neri & Hu. Hickling and Swedish-Chinese architect Alex Mok were both senior associates at arguably China’s most internationally renowned contemporary architectural practice when they collaborated on a major hospitality project. The experience reinforced their shared design sensibilities, cementing a solid professional relationship that eventually saw them branch out on their own. They established multi-disciplinary studio Linehouse in 2014 and continue to exercise the holistic design approach and careful attention to detail each developed in their previous roles. Hickling and Mok, who grew up in Sweden and studied…