David Sheppard’s lifelong passion for architecture
Architect David Sheppard recalls an idyllic Kiwi childhood, exciting projects in far-off places, the ‘town of the future’, and the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquakes.
DAVID SHEPPARD, CLAD IN A CRISP WHITE SHIRT, brick-red trousers and Birkenstocks ushers me into his central city home. ‘Let me show you through,’ he says. This is a home he rebuilt after the 2010–11 earthquakes and moved back into in 2018. Clean lines and clever angles, combined with a light and surprisingly spacious interior, lend the home drama and appeal.
At 78, the architect, who recently retired (sort of ) from his practice of Sheppard & Rout, can look back at a career spanning 60 years. It includes projects in New Zealand and overseas, culminating in a term as President of the New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) from 2012 to 2014.
David grew up in Takapuna, on Auckland’s North Shore, and says he always wanted to be an architect. ‘At the age of six I told my parents I wanted to be involved in building buildings, and they said, “Oh, you’ll have to become an architect.”
‘I was just gobsmacked by the modern,’ he recalls. ‘I used to ask Mum and Dad if we could go [a particular way] because I wanted to see the “pink house”. Two flat-roofed pink government state houses. I don’t know what possessed me to like them, but I’ve always been a modernist – right from that age.’
At the age of 12, David subscribed to Home & Building magazine, for ninepence a month. He was fascinated by anything designed by the ‘Group Architects’, which included Bill Wilson. ‘Their early houses were built only a block or so away from my parents’ one. I would pore over these modern designs; brick and tile houses had no appeal at all.’
Growing up on the North Shore in the late ’40s and ’50s was idyllic. David describes it as ‘a very interesting and mixed community – Dutch potters, Jewish refugees. There was the beach, boats and yachting; collecting apples and blackberries. It was a very open lifestyle. We walked down five or six doors to the beach. We’d never think of closing the front door, we’d just go down for a swim.’
David studied Latin and drawing at Takapuna Grammar, then went on to study architecture at the University of Auckland, where his revered Bill Wilson gave the orientation address. ‘He was my god! I ended up working with him during university holidays,’ he enthuses.
In 1965, he qualified with a Bachelor of Architecture. ‘The day I finished, I put a down payment on an old VW, and when I got home there was a letter saying I’d been awarded the Postgraduate Fellowship in Architecture.’
This was followed by a Fulbright scholarship, and
David decided on the University of Pennsylvania – one of the American Ivy League colleges – where he completed a combined Master of Architecture and Master of City Planning degree. ‘Having grown up on the Shore, it was like an island. I was confronted with politics for the first time in my life at the age of 18 in Auckland, but to then go at the age of 23 into America in the late ’60s [was something else] – you’d wake up every morning to news about Vietnam, and then great demonstrations at all the universities. It was all very interesting and eye-opening.
‘When I left New Zealand, I went by ship and I did the 99 ticket plus a Greyhound bus ticket right across the
States.’ He visited Chicago and saw buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson’s glass pavilion in Connecticut, and New York City with its iconic architecture.
He liked the lack of fences. ‘Houses just sit on lawns that spread between, and there were really lovely New England houses. What I loved was the squares, some of the spaces, and the general presence of trees.’
He stayed on and worked with Wallace McHarg architects, planners and landscape architects, and then for a California-based practice. ‘We used to work like dogs into the night in the East Coast; you’d go to San Francisco and it was a completely different lifestyle. Where did all the staff go at five o’clock? Oh, they were at the beach or playing tennis!’
Then, in 1971, American architect Ezra Ehrenkrantz offered David a job in London. ‘I was going to take six to nine months off in Europe and just tootle around. I said I was going on holiday, but he was very persuasive.’
David found an apartment in the heart of the city. ‘That was the charm of London, those wonderful squares and lovely shop facades. It was a pretty idealistic way of seeing London, having a big apartment within walking distance of the office so you weren’t commuting and spending a fortune on it.’
From there an opportunity for adventure arose – assessing infrastructure needs in northern Iraq. ‘The head architect had studied in London and he was part of the Iraqi aristocracy. He said, “We’ll have to call it a tourism study.” The rulers of Iraq at the time were siphoning the money from the northern Iraqis and the Kurds were trying to get a share of the oil revenues to develop the north of Iraq. We were talking about developing roads, hotels, to support tourism; in fact, we were doing undercover infrastructure studies, so I had to work out how many schools and trade schools there should be. That was really interesting. I had a military pass, so I was able to get right up to the Iranian border, through a pass that was partly developed by a New Zealander, the Gali Ali Beg. It was absolutely incredible.’
In 1974, Prime Minister Norman Kirk and the Ministry of Works had been pressing for an alternative to urban sprawl – a new town at Rolleston. David was invited to head up the project out of 30 applications from all over the world. ‘In the 10 years I had been away, it was amazing how many changes there had been. It was buzzing, there was a lot of energy.
‘Muldoon, predictably, put the kybosh on the project. He said there was no role for central government in urban development.’
David says his original plan for Rolleston, later dubbed ‘town of the future’, had lots of merit, and still has. ‘The main achievement was a concept plan which was led by infrastructure rather than led by subdivision. The normal pattern is the city council will encourage subdivisions and then provide infrastructure.
‘It was simple lattice grid rather than lots of spaghettitype cul-de-sacs leading off cul-de-sacs. We had a central spine through the city, through the new town and that was going to contain parks, waterways, shopping centres, and then you went out from that to clusters of housing, so you always knew where you were.’ He is disappointed by Rolleston now. ‘It is the most abominable plan. Well, it’s not really a plan. I actually got lost in it recently.’
David worked on a long-term plan for Christchurch, and also studied remaining hydropower potential in the South Island. The chance came to move back to Auckland, but with David’s partner at the time pregnant with son Jonathan (who now works at his practice), he decided to stay in Christchurch, where he teamed up with good friend and fellow architect Jonty Rout, in 1982.
His home and office was in Cathedral Square, in the Duncan Macfarlane building. ‘Duncan gave me the funds to convert the attic into a really lovely apartment. It was great, and I used to leave the car right outside the Savoy Theatre where all the bikies were. One of the fellows sitting there, a self-labelled supervisor, said, “You left your keys in the door of the car.” It was really nice, you’d think it was all ruffians but there was this caring for each other.’
Sheppard & Rout moved into their current building in Salisbury Street in 1981. ‘Sadly, Jonty had a quadruple bypass but we managed to get another 19 years with him. He was a
‘Duncan gave me the funds to convert the attic into a really lovely apartment. It was great, and I used to leave the car right outside the Savoy Theatre where all the bikies were.’
Designing embassies was another career highlight, including the New Zealand Embassy in Tokyo.
very intuitive architect. Great sense of humour, quite a people person, but quite highly principled. He couldn’t abide codes coming in about handrails and staircases. He would say, “I’ve got two children, we live on a steep site in Governors Bay with no sign of a handrail anywhere, and what happens if we go to the beach, there’s no handrail down there.”’
Designing embassies was another career highlight, including the New Zealand Embassy in Tokyo; the Permanent Mission to the UN, in Geneva; alteration work at New
Zealand House, Ho Chi Minh City; redevelopment of the High Commissioner’s house in Port Moresby; and the new embassy and ambassador’s residence in Berlin.
Other work from the late ’90s on included Air New Zealand and Christchurch International Airport Ltd (CIAL), and, more recently, big box architecture at Dakota Park.
The earthquakes of 2010–11 transformed Christchurch, but David believes we should have been more prepared. ‘After the earthquake, of course, everyone was caught napping. In the early ’90s, a report had come out by civil engineers who said that in the event of an earthquake, the city was likely to be badly affected by liquefaction, there were weak foundations, and the buildings didn’t relate to the subsoil conditions. Everyone got terribly worried for a day or two and then went back to sleep. What they should have done of course was to say an earthquake was likely – it was a clear and present danger.’
The Institute of Architects mounted the first study of what to do after an earthquake. ‘We opened the exhibition a day after the earthquake [in February 2011], so all our exhibition was set up in the foyer of the Art Gallery. Civil Defence took over the space and all our display panels became office partitions.’
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee advertised for teams to do the plan for recovery. The result was the 100-day plan, which David helped lead, along with fellow architecture practices Warren and Mahoney and Boffa Miskell, and two Australian consultants.
How has it worked out? ‘I think we’ve got good buy-in; the frustration has been more at the length of time it’s taken to get to this stage. The centre city is working, it’s gradually filling in the way we hoped.’
Although now (mostly) retired, David’s passion for architecture and city planning remains as strong as ever.