After nearly two decades at Homestyle, I’ve come to see each issue as an exercise in perspective. Returning to the familiar and noticing it differently keeps the story alive. Spring makes this instinct tangible, a season that brings energy and invites new ways of seeing. Architects and designers do it when they reimagine a site or material. Homeowners do it when they shape those ideas into everyday life.
Our cover story carries that spirit. Architect Guy Tarrant pared back a 1990s home with tangled rooflines in Mount Eden, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, refining it into a series of calm gables filled with light and air — turn to page 52 to see the transformation.
In Tauranga, architect Steven Chambers designed a special space for his own family on a wedge of land, a warm refuge shaped by both setting and the needs of his children. Discover it on page 64.
Working with Macfie Architecture, Jamie and Paul Oliver have given their 100-year-old bungalow in a beachside Auckland suburb a new chapter. Its character remains at the street, while behind it a black pavilion opens to the pool and garden. Flip to page 76 for the full story.
On an Akaroa hillside, Rebecca and Mark Herring collaborated with Johnstone Callaghan Architects for a rebuild that evolved from their 1960s bach into a home that now frames painting, cooking and gathering. Find out more about this project on page 90.
Each of these houses is shaped by decisions that favour clarity and proportion. The result is spaces that feel generous in experience: timber glowing at dusk, a courtyard shifting with the seasons, a breezeway filled with laughter on a still evening.
Fresh perspectives is what moves them forward, and us with them. Even the smallest adjustment can make the familiar feel new. May these pages spark a few of those moments for you, too.
Alice Lines, Editor
@alice.lines