CONTRIBUTORS

SIMON WILSON Our regular contributor photographed two features at the beach (p.50 and p.92).

Does photographing architecture come with the occupational hazard of wanting to create or rework your own home? It’s great to spend so much time with residential architecture, a treat often reserved for the owners. Talking with architects and owners I am constantly learning and it certainly makes it hard to go home to our very original ex-state house. A new build is certainly in the future – until then we are doing a test run and building a cabin in Northland, designed by the talented Ben Mitchell-Anyon of Patch Work Architecture.

You shot a Waiheke holiday home by John Irving and the design spread on Auckland’s west coast – will you be going coastal yourself this summer?

Both shoots in this issue saw me standing on the beach, although John Irving’s Oneroa beach house was a little more luxurious than the windy dunes of Port Waikato. This summer I plan to put the camera down and head up to Waipu for as long as I can. I’ll work on my hammer swing and throw the kids into the ocean. Tell us about your recent venture into video and what you are currently working on. Video has been exploding for us over the past five years and we set up a separate production company called Swell last year. I’m really lucky to be working with a great team and some exciting clients. We have a focus around architecture and design but have been branching out making films about sustainability for Auckland Council and even toured the UK with Black Grace dance company. I just wrapped the NZIA Gold Medal film on Roger Walker, which was a pleasure to make.

MARY GAUDIN The New Zealand photographer focused on iconic French architecture (p.34 and p.56).

French architect Jean Balladur got to create his very own town in the south of France. Could you conceive of such a vision coming to life again – if so, where and by whom? Jean Balladur had a team of architects, planners and artists who worked with him to create the town. The buildings have a coherence in their individuality, but are also part of a singular vision. In this way it reminds me of Napier in the repetition of motifs and form in the buildings. I’m not sure how such a singular architectural vision would be seen today. Christchurch’s new build is a case in point. You are based in Montpellier, how do you find France as a source of inspiration in terms of architecture? I’m also interested in the less iconic side of French architecture. For example, Gaou Benat is a complex of 700 houses built by architects André Lefèvre and Jean Aubert in 1958 on the Mediterranean coast. Built from local stone with vegetative roofs, they nestle inconspicuously among the vegetation. It’s the inverse of Le Palais Bulles and La Grande Motte style of French architecture, but one that is equally present in France.

You went behind the scenes at a Dior show on the Côte d’Azur and had the rare experience of photographing Palais Bulles – what was the lasting impression from your encounter? It’s a pure folly of a place, vast and audacious. It’s definitely a unique piece of 70s architecture.

What else are you currently

working on? I’m doing a few nice projects while I’m here in New Zealand, then it’s back to France at the beginning of December. Early next year I’ll be working with the architect Giles Reid on a project photographing Peter Beaven’s Tile Kiln studios in Hampstead, London.

IMOGEN TEMM New to the HOME team, the designer and stylist shares her creative insights.

This is your first issue on staff at HOME. What did you most enjoy working on? Heading up to Kaiwaka for the cover shoot was the ideal introduction to HOME. Watching our editor Simon, photographer Simon Devitt and designers Sarah and Catherine so meticulously execute their vision for the cover concept assured me I’m working in a place where quality is key.

Tell us a bit about yourself and what you were doing before starting at HOME. In 2013 I graduated from the School of Design at Victoria University of Wellington, majoring in Design Innovation and minoring in Media. I’ve worked at Salient magazine, New Zealand Women’s Weekly, Your Home & Garden and in Melbourne as general inhouse ‘creative, millennial tech-type person’ at coffee roastery Code Black.

Here’s a clichéd question for you: as a creative person, what inspires you? I think inspiration comes from continuous and rigorous investigation into as many different lines of enquiry as possible. To me, creativity is the ability to effectively weave together different concepts and points of interest – maybe that’s why it’s hard for me to consider myself a real ‘creative’ at this stage in my career as I still have so much to learn! I’m yet to tick ‘creator of the best, most exciting innovation of all time’ off my list of career accomplishments. And maybe I won’t but I hope I can somehow make a significant contribution to the critical design conversation. Luckily, I’m working here at HOME, surrounded by so many people committed to the pursuit and intrigue of innovation. To be in a place where I can sponge off and soak up other people’s intelligence inspires me to keep striving so that one day I feel accomplished enough to fully claim the title of ‘creative person’.