Lately, I’ve been noticing a change — in the homes I visit, the projects landing on my desk and the conversations I’m having with designers. There’s a confidence arriving around the ways people assert who they are at home. Colour chosen without apology. Spaces made for the actual lives inside them. The mood shift is toward authentic expression, infused with soul. And this issue is where you’ll find it.
For interior designer Natalie Bradburn and her creative collaborator Lucy Coote, thoughtful curation is all about the feel-good decisions that go into crafting spaces. Their floor-by-floor transformation of Jenny Ross and Sam Schriek’s Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington townhouse — where the palette shifts from vibrant at the bottom to cocooning at the top — is a deliberate case against neutral, safe and made-for-resale design. The library nook that stopped us in our tracks, cosy, specific and completely assured, is on our cover, and you can find the story on page 62.
Just up the road in the Wairarapa, the home that architect Daniel Smith of Edwards White designed for Bridget and Mark Heginbotham takes the opposite approach to colour and arrives at the same place. They considered going bold, but pulled back, knowing white walls would work harder as a foil to their art collection. See how it shapes up on page 74.
Architects’ own homes, and especially their first, are always among my favourites. The constraints are real, the decisions entirely personal. Emily Stephens’ build on Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland’s North Shore, its scoria-coloured shell tucked into a section overlooking bush, is designed precisely for the life she and partner Sam Owles are making here. Flip to page 90 to see how they pulled it off.
Joanne and Stephen Fredricson arrived at Paerata through a series of moves that took them from the city to a rural idyll, where Jenny Walter designed a cluster of gabled buildings within a garden by landscape designer Zoé Carafice. For more on how this suits the chapter they’re in, see page 100.
None of them waited for permission. They asserted who they are at home. Let this spur you on to make your space respond to this season of life… and the next.
Alice Lines, Editor
@alice.lines