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Design Winners

There were 140 entries to the Design Competition organized by the Department of Building and Housing. They were short-listed to 10 entries and the winners announced at a function at parliament on 31 March 2009.

The winner of the Supreme Award for the overall winning design was Stephen Smith from S3 Architects Limited in Auckland. His design is being built in Otara by the Housing New Zealand Corporation.

The Supreme Award winning design from the Starter Home Design competition – an example of a house based on the Simple House Acceptable Solution.

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:

  1. Category 1, in which designs had to adhere to the parameters contained in the Department’s proposed design document, and
  2. 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.