Our Story.
Our team, our clients, our contractors, consultants, and suppliers, all play a part, in together making this work meaningful and valuable… and that’s what continues to make it all worthwhile.
The Beginning
Right from the beginning, family has always been at the centre of our practice — both our own families, and the amazing whānau we’ve built over the years.
When we started out in 1996, there weren’t many women running their own architecture practices, and even fewer getting recognition for it. Fast forward to now — more than half of NZ’s architecture grads are women, and so many are out there doing incredible things, on their own terms. It’s really heart-warming to see.
Covid, for all its challenges, helped shift the mindset around flexible work. Suddenly part-time and remote work weren’t just acceptable — they were necessary. It’s made it a whole lot easier for others to work the way we chose to work decades ago… and we’re pretty glad about that.
The Beginnings of NZ Women in Architecture…
Back in 1993, Carolyn had the privilege to be interviewed by NZ Home & Building Magazine with a group of talented women architects to discuss and describe their story and the dedication it took to achieve and succeed in this field. (cover copy below)
Our Mission
We’ve always wanted to build something that gave us the flexibility to keep doing the work we loved, while also being present as mums. The typical career paths at that time didn’t offer that sort of flexibility, and we saw a lot of talented women stepping away from architecture after having kids — either leaving altogether or working from home, unsupported.
Over time, we became a bit of an incubator for brilliant young grads finding their way in the profession. We still keep an eye on where their careers have taken them — and we’re so proud.
We love being able to take our clients’ initial set of ideas, circumstances or aspirations, and to work together with the whole team to mold them into something that satifies their practical and aesthetic needs, at the same time reaching an integrity that satisfies ours…and by integrity we mean an outcome that is thoughtful, life-enhancing, inherently buildable, environmentally sensitive, budget-conscious and valuable to our clients.
Today
We love architecture!
Our passion has not changed, we love working with all the people involved on a project team cooperatively, towards an optimal result. We enjoy sharing knowledge and helping up-coming generations, growing and learning together to create lovable, livable spaces.
More information about us personally can be found here
