Thoughtful architecture.
Practical solutions.

Planning rules have changed, creating new opportunities for infill housing on many residential properties. Your property may have more potential than you realise. Careful site planning can help identify where one or more additional dwellings may fit well while responding to access, sun, outlook, privacy, existing development and the character of the site. See 'Property Planning' for more information about assessing your property’s development potential.

Each home is different because each client is different. People bring their own tastes, family circumstances, priorities and aspirations to a project, from first-home clients and growing families to intergenerational households and retirees. Stephen takes time to understand each client’s particular needs, preferences and interests, and works collaboratively with them to create enduring homes that respond well to their way of life, achieve their objectives and provide lasting value.

There is something particularly rewarding about working with an existing building and discovering what it could become. Whether extending a home for a growing family, reworking an awkward layout or transforming a ‘doer-upper’, Stephen enjoys the challenge of looking for creative solutions. Working collaboratively with clients, he aims to make the most of their investment by improving how the home functions, responds to their needs and reflects their preferences, sometimes fitting in with and complementing the existing building, and sometimes revealing possibilities the clients had not initially imagined — giving the building a renewed identity, purpose and character.

In addition to the commercial projects illustrated below from Stephen’s own practice, his experience as a team member in other architectural practices includes a wide range of commercial and specialist building types. These have included the expansion of a dairy factory complex near Hawera; an office tower in Auckland CBD; retail shops and suburban malls; schools and university facilities, including the marine laboratory at Island Bay; extensions to the Cancer Society head office in Newtown; specialist microbiology, molecular biology and forensic laboratories for ESR in Wellington and Christchurch; and apartment developments in Auckland.

Three of the projects below are hypothetical masterplans developed through Stephen’s architectural research for his Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architecture degrees. They explore, at different scales, how settlement structure, transport, housing density, open space, privacy and communal life can be brought together to create more sustainable and liveable neighbourhoods. The National Stadium Concept is different in origin: Stephen prepared it in 2006 as a possible design for a New Zealand National Stadium to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup, combining stadium architecture with a wider urban design and waterfront masterplanning proposition.

Together, three of these projects below set out a connected paradigm for more sustainable urban development. Low rise, medium-density - Paeroa establishes the wider settlement structure: compact, low-rise urban settlements linked by rapid transit, in which amenities and public transport are easily accessible within a few minutes’ walking distance. Walkable Urbanism - Transit-Oriented Development develops that idea into a more explicit transit-oriented model, bringing enough homes, people and mixed uses within a five-minute walking catchment of a neighbourhood centre and rail station to make walking and rapid transit genuinely convenient. Privacy and Connection - Evergreen Crescent then moves to the scale of housing and communal space, showing how more intensive housing can preserve generous open space and privacy while multivalent shared spaces support casual contact, connectedness and a stronger sense of local community. Together they show how urban structure and housing design can work at different scales to create places that are compact, walkable, environmentally responsive, socially connected and pleasant to live in.