Starter Home Design winners announced

The winners of a Starter Home Design Competition organised by the Department of Building and Housing were announced at a function at Parliament on 31 March 2009.

After short-listing 140 entries down to 10, the judging panel awarded the overall winning home design to Stephen Smith from S3 Architects Ltd in Auckland. It will be built in Mangere by the Housing New Zealand Corporation and showcased to the public.

The judging panel convenor Gordon Moller says the overall winning design has a striking contemporary appearance, which means it will fit well into the local environment.

“It is a carefully planned design that will make an excellent starter home.”

The Department organised the competition to encourage architects, designers, and those in the building industry to come up with designs and solutions for good quality, affordable homes that show what can be done with limited resources.

With a trend to building larger homes compounding the increasing cost of houses, the competition promoted the use of clever design to create smaller-sized homes that offer quality, affordable options. The competition had two categories:

Category 1, in which designs had to adhere to the parameters contained in the Department’s proposed design document, and

Category 2, which allowed the parameters to be applied more innovatively.

Tony Koia of Koia Architects from Queenstown was the Category 1 winner, with John Wright of John Wright: Architects Limited the runner-up. Stephen Smith won Category 2, with James Raimon of Archimedia Limited the runner-up.

Katrina Bach, Department of Building and Housing Chief Executive, said the Department will use the ideas generated by the competition to inform and improve the design guidelines for Simple Housing.

Competition winner Stephen Smith (second right) with (from left) Housing Minister Phil Heatley, judging panel convenor Gordon Moller, Department of Building and Housing Chief Executive Katrina Bach, and Minister for Building and Construction Maurice Williamson.