After 16 years of close companionship we buried our dear feline friend Zaphod under a birch tree in the garden. It’s a spot where the view is fantastic and the sun hits it for a long time.

Zaphod, named after Zaphod Breeblebox for reasons partly due to his Devon Rex heritage, is sorely missed.

Ouch. We’ve had an extremely hectic 3 months:

• the purchase of a little 1930s cottage/shack (with its very own ‘goat-track’ for access from the road) with stunning views over Wellington harbour and the Lower Hutt Valley. Needless to say, our move into our new home-cum-studio was fraught with difficulty…
• the clean-up of our new acquisition (it was a pig-sty): how can such a tiny place hoard so much junk?
• the design and fix-up of said cottage (still in-progress): I’m revisiting my old high-school word-work skills!
• new website for Elephant Training
• the addition of audio interviews and articles about the late Harry Seidler – see the ‘Articles & Writings’ section in the Harry Seidler Associates website
• a design refresh of a site we first designed 3 years ago, HASSELL We’re also currently completing the Chinese language version
• we’ve started the redesign and development of another 2003 website of ours, Rice Daubney
• we’ve just about finished one of our ready-made designs for City Kickboxing in Auckland
• further development on Hanover Human Resources Intranet
• new design development for Hanover Legal Intranet

Like I said, ouch.

Melbourne architect Graeme Coop’s new website Detail Architecture has just gone live. It is a typical example of one of our “ready-made” solutions…

For the moment Graeme is limiting his site content to overview information only; he plans to add case-studies of his work when he finds the time.

Renowned Australian architect (and esteemed client of ours) Harry Seidler died peacefully at his home this morning. His death followed a massive stroke last April.

We were privileged to live for nearly 10 years in a penthouse apartment of Ithaca Gardens, one of his 1959 designs in Elizabeth Bay, Sydney. Harry and his wife Penelope lived in the apartment between 1960 and 1967, and its interior still retains their early customisations and personal touches. The apartment itself was very special to the Seidlers, but Harry was not all that effusive over the rest of the building; he commented that he only liked the folded-concrete roof of the garages…).

Damn, we loved that place! It had expansive-yet-intimate views over the naval dockyard in Garden Island, and panoramic views across the rest of Sydney harbour. It was not a large place, but always felt very special – its interior design had the ability to throw one’s focus out towards the view; a simultaneous liberation and compression of horizontal space (architectural/verbal diarrhea I know, but thats how it felt)… Everything was beautifully put-together and considered – very simply and deftly with minimal fuss – a trademark early Seidler work, with many of the tricks learnt from the Rose Seidler House reused and improved.

Harry Seidler was a keen force of Modern Architecture, his buildings melding form and function with simplicity, verve and wit.

Our built environment is wa-aay richer for having known him.