We’re very excited to launch this episode: our special live recording with an audience at the Harewood Crematorium as part of the amazing Open Christchurch architecture festival.
We were joined at this 1963 Warren & Mahoney masterpiece by a panel of four fantastic architectural thinkers from Ōtautahi who responded to a theme inspired by our venue: the buildings we’d like to see before we die.
Our panel included:
✨ Festival director Jessica Halliday @blessed_n_cursed
✨ Performer and writer Juanita Hepi @juanthefool
✨ Founder of @field_studio_architecture Andrew Just
✨ Architectural photographer @sarahrowlandsphotography
Our topic also led us to discuss buildings that we’d not only like to see, but that seemed to offer the right kind of space for contemplation of the immensity of existence.
It was a really enjoyable evening full of insight, humour and brilliant buildings, and we’re very grateful to all the audience members who turned up, as well as @openchch for inviting us to be part of it, and sound engineer Arran Eley.
The event was also weighted with sadness, not only because so many people there had farewelled loved ones at the Harewood Crematorium before, but because one of our panellists, Matt Arnold, had died in April after a bicycle crash. We pay tribute to Matt in the recording and wish he could have been there with us.
Another incredible day to wrap up our weekend at Open Christchurch (and our Insta takeover). Hard to sum up how great everything was – it is truly the stuff of dreams to see a festival like this welcoming thousands of people to engage with architecture and design and play their part in shaping the city around them.
A huge mihi to the team for inviting us to be part of the festival, and thanks to all the volunteers and guides who make the festival so special. We can’t wait to come back! 💛
Some highlights from today to leave you with:
1-2 Baby House by Funtrik Pony, interiors by Forager.
3-4 Te Ara Taiao Living Landscapes Walk guided by the excellent @juanthefool , featuring the Ōtākaro and whāriki by Reihana Parata and Morehu Flutey-Henare
5-6 A swing by 65 Cambridge Terrace to @objectspace and Miles Warren’s former flat
7 LEGO at Tūranga featuring the Dorset St Flats by Miles Warren
8-9 Te Raekura Redcliffs School by @tennentbrown
10-11 NZ Refrigerating Company Building by Mason, Seward & Stanton, renovated by Context Architects
12-14 College House by @warrenmahoney , a dream ending to a terrific weekend.
Our first 24 hours of the amazing @openchch festival! What a time, what a city. We’re so lucky to be here on this very special weekend of celebrating Ōtautahi’s architecture. Watch the @openchch stories tomorrow for more of our Insta takeover, and enjoy our highlights so far in this post.
1. Us!
2. Our power aka media passes
3. Harewood Crematorium, Warren & Mahoney 1963, where we held our talk last night with @field_studio_architecture , @juanthefool , @blessed_n_cursed and @sarahrowlandsphotography
4. The terrific Te Kaha by @wearepopulous and @warrenmahoney
5. Our fantastic guide Dr Ann McEwan and volunteer Chris Pollard at the PoMo at the City’s Edge tour, outside the First Church of Christ, Scientist by @warrenmahoney 1991
6. Inside the First Church of Christ, Scientist
7. The Bath House (actually a conservatory, which contained a swimming pool at one point in the 1900s) at Mona Vale
8. Mona Vale, Joseph Clarkson Maddison, 1899
9. Nuli’s House by @field_studio_architecture
10. The gorgeous Dorset Street Flats by Miles Warren, 1956
Is a messy city a better city?
That’s what we’ve been thinking about lately, since the publication of a collection of essays entitled Messy Cities - Why We Can’t Plan Everything, edited by Dylan Reid.
There are many views on this, which generally boil down to a single big question: is the urge for control of our urban spaces actually making them more difficult to live in? And if we are to loosen the reins, then how should we do so?
We sat down to talk this through in our new episode, which you can listen at the usual places. Tash took the pics in this post on her recent trip to Japan – a timely visit, as it turns out!
Here y’all are, dragging your sorry asses into the holidays, while your favourite high-performing architecture podcast is finding enough in the tank to deliver a stellar end-of-year episode! What are you even doing with your lives?
As you ponder this existential question, the 76SR team invites you to contemplate the shocker of the year-that-almost-was with a review of the best and worst that it had to offer. Ease into the holidays by listening to a very eclectic summary of the architectural highlights (and lowlights) of 2025, including the Stirling Prize winner, the excellence of Australian residential architects (especially in Victoria?), Hiwa (the rec centre at the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau), and the greatness of Frank Gehry.
Also! Thanks to everyone for listening in 2025. We wish you all the best for a relaxing and restorative holiday.
Class photo by the lovely @barrytobinphotographer ✨
Could your last weekend of spring get any better? Yes it could! Because our latest episode is now up, featuring the amazing landscape architect Rachel de Lambert, who has worked at Boffa Miskell as a partner for many years and has a wise and incisive overview of many things, including the ways architecture and landscape architecture intersect, the fundamental importance of her profession and the way it has evolved, and the possible futures of our cities.
Rachel is from Christchurch but based in Auckland, where she’s been a leading voice on the city’s Urban Design Panel, helped shape Wynyard Quarter and the master-planning of Cornwall Park. She’s also led significant projects all over the country, as well as co-authoring Te Tangi a te Manu, the Aotearoa New Zealand landscape assessment guidelines, that make a Te Ao Māori worldview a cornerstone of the practice.
If nothing else, tune in only to hear Arch refer to Rachel’s profession as “landscaping” - she’s too diplomatic to sigh deeply, but her weary silence says more than enough. It just goes to show that learning is a lifelong process, and Arch will never refer to the profession in this diminishing way again. Which means everyone is winning, slowly but surely.
We had to use some leverage to secure the high-profile guest in our new episode, and luckily our Arch had it: when the team from George Clarke’s Homes in the Wild called wanting to feature Arch’s Rakino Island cabin on the TV series, our intrepid podcaster managed to organise a 76 Small Rooms recording sesh with George too.
George is best-known for his TV work, of course, but he’s also an architect and an ardent believer in architecture’s power to make everyone’s lives better. His natural ebullience is also put to good use in his advocacy for better quality homes and the provision of more social and affordable dwellings to combat Britain’s housing crisis.
We were honoured @mrgeorgeclarke was able to spare an hour to talk with us and really enjoyed our chat with him. Please have a listen, and also check out the Homes in the Wild series, now on @skyopennz and @neon_nz . Oh, and check out Arch’s ingenious little cabin at rakinocabin.nz, with more pics to come!
Craig Moller (Ngāti Hauā) is an Auckland-based architect who loves drawing. And right now, some of those drawings are in the spotlight: firstly, among the fascinating collection of architectural sketches, renders and more in Objectspace’s terrific exhibition, “Rendered Futures: Drawing architecture”, which runs until August 24; and secondly, in the new book Building People, a collection of his lockdown-era drawings in which buildings take on playful anthropomorphic shapes.
Craig studied at the University of Auckland (where he now teaches) and at Yale, and is a director of Moller Architects with his father Gordon. We were delighted to be able to chat to him about his creative process, his use of different media, his thoughts on how artificial intelligence might affect architectural education, and much more.
Hamish Nevile has worked on some iconic buildings with some incredible people – with Oscar Niemeyer (slide two) and Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura on two of London’s famed Serpentine Pavilions, and with Rem Koolhaas on OMA’s CCTV tower in Beijing. He did this working not as an architect, but as a structural engineer at the London office of Arup under the revered Cecil Balmond.
Now Hamish is living in Auckland and is the director of design at Holmes Group, a structural, fire and infrastructure consultancy with offices around the world. He joined us at Tash’s studio for a conversation about the fundamentally collaborative nature of architecture - and how good collaboration is essential in making better buildings.
Is colour making a comeback? After decades of beige-ification, we think things are changing for the better – enough for us to dedicate a podcast ep to it.
We’re noticing a greater sense of adventure with colour recently in projects both here and abroad, so in this episode we dive into a discussion about how colour has been an integral element of architecture for centuries – even the modernists embraced it big-time – and how real estate fetishism dulled the tones of the past couple of decades.
It also gave us the chance to talk about Le Corbusier, Luis Barragán (travel brag alert) and some shining local examples of architectural colour confidence. So dive in now on Soundcloud or wherever you get your podcasts!
It is with GREAT EXCITEMENT that we present our 10th birthday episode to you! 🎂
It was recorded in front of a live audience at @objectspace , where we shared the stage with a panel of three of our faves: architect Jade Kake, Rich Naish of RTA Studio - who starred in our first episode a decade ago - and Objectspace director Kim Paton.
We asked our panellists to respond to two questions: How has design in Aotearoa New Zealand changed in the last decade? And what changes can we hope for in the decade ahead?
As you can imagine with a panel of big brains like this, the answers are as varied as they are stimulating. A huge thank you to the audience members at our live recording - more than 90 of you! - and to the lovely @teaihebutler for managing the recording so ably. And, of course, to Objectspace, not only for hosting the event but for all the work they do in stimulating conversations about the place of architecture and design in our world today.
We hope you enjoy listening to the episode - link in bio to our Soundcloud, and of course you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Happy birthday to us! 🥳
Ewan Brown and Hugh Tennent founded their architecture partnership after a chance meeting on Wellington’s waterfront: they knew each other a bit, and decided almost on the spot that their complementary skills would make a good fit in Hugh’s existing firm. Now, decades later, the pair are the recipients of the NZ Institute of Architects 2024 Gold Medal, recognition of their consistently humane and sustainable approach to architecture across an incredibly broad range of project types.
Tennent and Brown have designed homes, airports, schools, religious buildings, stadia and more. They’ve also pushed the boundaries of sustainable practice with their successful participation in the Living Building Challenge, and found, as Pākehā architects, a rich vein of work on significant kaupapa Māori projects.
Their values-based approach has not created buildings with a readily identifiable style, but something deeper and more sensitive to client and context.
We spoke to Ewan and Hugh about how their approach has evolved in partnership, what each of them brings to their projects, and what it means to win the Gold Medal. We really enjoyed our chat with them, and hope you do too.
Images:
1 Ewan and Hugh, photo by Catherine Cattanach
2 Te Ara a Tāwhaki - Te Wānanga o Raukawa, Ōtaki, 2018, photo by Andy Spain
3 Ngā Mokopuna, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, 2024, photo by Andy Spain
4 and 5 Pā Reo Campus, Ōtaki, 2023, photo by Andy Spain
