Coming soon: The Resene Architecture & Design Film Festival

HOME is delighted to support the Resene Architecture & Design Film Festival, which hits screens in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin in May and June with a lineup of the best architecture and design films you'll see anywhere. 

Here are the dates. Mark your calendars!

Rialto Cinemas, Auckland: May 9-22
The Embassy, Wellington: May 23-June 5
The Rialto, Dunedin: June 6-9

For those who can't wait to inspect the programme, you can visit the link here. (Wellingtonians: the festival will screen at The Embassy in your town, so the programme is at the Event Cinemas website here - they haven't loaded ticket booking capability on there yet, but we're assured they will soon). 

One of the films we're looking forward to in the festival is Diller Scofidio + Renfro: Reimagining Lincoln Center and the High Line. Charles Renfro was a member of our Home of the Year jury in 2010, and we adore him and the firm's work. In our current issue, we feature an interview with the documentary's directors, Muffie Dunn and Tom Piper, which we're also pleased to share with you here:

Image courtesy of Checkerboard Film Foundation, photos by Iwan Baan. 

HOME What made you choose DS+R as the focus of your documentary? 

MUFFIE DUNN, Director I’d wanted to do a film on Diller Scofidio + Renfro ever since 2002 when I first set foot in New York City’s Brasserie restaurant. At the time, though, they didn’t have enough built work around which to focus a film.
TOM PIPER, Director At Checkerboard [Film Foundation] we’d been doing a series of architecture films begun in 2006. Subjects were chosen in conjunction with Suzanne Stephens, deputy editor of Architectural Record. Once the High Line and Lincoln Center were underway, she rightly urged us to move forward with DS+R. 

Elizabeth Diller (left), Ricardo Scofidio (centre) and Charles Renfro. Photo by Peter Ash Lee.

HOME What did you learn about the principals of the firm by working with them so closely?

MUFFIE DUNN Having made 11 architecture films prior to DS+R, let’s just say we’d become accustomed to a certain personality profile. But Liz, Ric and Charles were incredibly open and willing to share ideas right from the start, which we think is apparent in their work as well.

HOME What effect has their work had on New York City, where they're based?

TOM PIPER One of the ending lines of the film is from critic Martin Filler, who says they’ve had a “euphoric effect” on New York. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find disagreement with that. 

MUFFIE DUNN I would add that their work is inviting. They’ve removed the fortress-like elements at Lincoln Center and implemented design that beckons people of all walks of life to mix and linger. The same can be said for the High Line.

The High Line in New York City. Photo by Checkerboard Film Foundation.

HOME What’s your favourite part of the film? 

MUFFIE DUNN We both love the Blur Building sequence. I find the ethereal nature of what they built breathtaking. 

TOM PIPER The combination of Jeremy Linzee’s music for that scene and the video footage we were able to locate from within the structure really creates a moving surrogate for having been there.

Subscribe now and get a genuinely great free gift

We're hoping that those of you who aren't already subscribers to HOME might be tempted by this offer: subscribe now for one year (six issues) for $43 (which saves $17 on the cover price) and you'll receive a gift that's way better than your normal plastic giveaway tat: a free pair of decidedly non-plastic Riedel Ouverture tasting flutes worth $72. Visit the link here to take advantage of the offer (the terms and conditions are on there, but basically, every new subscriber before June 3 gets a pair of the flutes). Do it!

Home of the Year 2013 shortlist

We're delighted to announce the homes shortlisted for the Home of the Year 2013. 

Next week, HOME editor Jeremy Hansen will accompany fellow judges Lance Herbst of Herbst Architects and Cathleen McGuigan, the New York-based editor of Architectural Record magazine, on a trip around the country to visit the shortlisted homes and choose the winner of New Zealand's richest architectural prize (the winning architects get a cheque for $15,000, thanks to our Home of the Year partner Altherm Window Systems). 

The shortlisted homes were chosen from an open entry process - not all of them have been photographed by our crack team yet, hence a bit of patchiness among the shots.

In Auckland, this family home (below) by Lochore Priest Architects is one of the 11 homes on our Home of the Year 2013 shortlist. 

In Christchurch, we'll be visiting this project (below) by Herriot + Melhuish, a renovation and expansion of an early 1960s home by Ernst A. Kalnins, with landscape architecture by Wraight & Associates. Photograph by Russell Kleyn.

This courtyard-style home near Wanaka (below) by Glamuzina Paterson Architects is one of the four South Island homes on our shortlist. Photograph by Samuel Hartnett. 

Back in Auckland, we'll visit this home (below) by previous Home of the Year finalist Daniel Marshall. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.
 

Three-time Home of the Year winners Stevens Lawson Architects made the shortlist with this home on Waiheke Island (below). Photograph by Mark Smith.
 

This shortlisted entry by Athfield Architects is on Auckland's Takapuna Beach. Photograph by Simon Devitt. (It's the home illuminated by the sun at left, in case you're wondering).
 

The capital city's only shortlisted entry this year is a home by Home of the Year 2001 winner Gerald Parsonson (below). Photograph by Paul McCredie. 
 

The members of Patchwork Architecture, all recent graduates, designed and built this home (below) in Whanganui. 

Back down south, we'll be visiting this shortlisted home near Wanaka (below) by Anna-Marie Chin of Crosson Clarke Carnachan Chin Architects. Photograph by Patrick Reynolds.
 

Tennent Brown Architects, who won the Home of the Year title in 2006, have this home near Nelson (below) on the Home of the Year 2013 shortlist. 
 

Last but not least, Hamish Monk of Hamish Monk Architecture features for the first time on the Home of the Year shortlist with this house in Remuera.

Follow HOME editor Jeremy Hansen on Twitter at this link for updates from the Home of the Year 2013 judging tour, starting Monday February 18.

The winner of the Home of the Year 2013 will be announced in our Home of the Year issue, on newsstands April 4. As always, our sincere gratitude to our Home of the Year partner, Altherm Window Systems, for making all this possible.

The Art Issue: our new cover

Our new cover, which we're rather pleased with, features a photo by Nicole Bachmann of the London home of New Zealand sculptor Francis Upritchard and her husband, furniture designer Martino Gamper. It's on newsstands from Monday February 4. We think it's pretty good, and we hope you like it too. 

Inside the magazine is a visual feast, featuring homes and studios of artists and collectors including Tony de Lautour, Rohan Wealleans, Fiona Pardington, Bill Sutton, Dick Frizzell, Anthony Goicolea, Emily Wolfe, and more. We cover a lot of ground, from Christchurch to Hawke's Bay, London and Auckland - all of it in the service of inspiring you, our readers, of course.