WallÉ

Awards

2024

Best Sustainable Architecture Practice 2024 - New Zealand, BUILD Architecture Awards 2024, United Kingdom

2023

Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects New Zealand Architecture Award Commercial 2023
The New Zealand Timber Design Award for Hybrid Building 2023
Finalist Workplace, INDE Indo Pacific Architecture Awards, Australia, 2023
Shortlisted for Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects New Zealand Architecture Award 2023

2022

Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects Nelson Marlborough Award; Commercial

Publications

2024

(BUILD's announcement is here, Irving Smith Architects Best Sustainable Architecture Practice 2024) - New Zealand, BUILD Architecture Awards 2024, United Kingdom 8.05.2024

2023

“2023 NZ Timber Design Awards winners announced”, Architecture Now, www.architecturenow.co.nz, 8.11.2023
Aaron Betsky, “Unfinished and Far Far Away : The Architecture of Irving Smith Architects”, Altrim Publishers, Thomson Press (India) Limited, 2023, pgs 150-154
“2023 New Zealand Architecture Awards: Shortlist announced”, Architecture Now, www.architecturenow.com”, 9.8.2023
“Finalists for the NZ Timber Design Awards announced!”, Architecture Now, www.architecturenow.co.nz, 5.7.2023
“Winners “2023 New Zealand Architecture Awards”, Architecture NZ, Nov/Dec 2023 pg100 announced: 2023 New Zealand Architecture Awards“, Architecture Now, www.architecturenow.com, 17.11.2023, pg81
“2023 New Zealand Architecture Awards”, Architecture NZ, Nov/Dec 2023, pg100
John Walsh, “Unfinished and Far Far Away; The Architecture of Irving Smith Architects”, Architecture Now, www.architecture now.co.nz, 6. 12.2023
John Walsh, “Unfinished and Far Far Away; The Architecture of Irving Smith Architects”, Architecture New Zealand, Nov/Dec 2023, pg130-131
Jan Henderson, “Unfinished and Far Far Away: The Architecture of Irving Smith Architects”, Indesign, www.indesignlive.com, Nov 16, 2023

2022

“Cocooned in Green - Irving Smith Architects new bespoke office”, Indesign, www.indesignlive.com, Australia, 25.10.2022
Amanda Harkness “The inside-outside thing at work”, Architecture Now, www.architecturenow.co.nz, New Zealand, 19.10.2022
Amanda Harkness, “The inside-outside thing at work”, Architecture New Zealand, September/October 2022, pgs6, 70-74
Local Architecture Awards, Architecture New Zealand, September/October 2022, pg 99
“Winners: 2022 NZIA Nelson & Marlborough Architecture Awards”, Architecture Now, www.architecturenow.co.nz, 29.7.2022
“See all the Shortlisted Projects for 2022”, Architecture Now, www. architecturenow.co.nz, 13.4.2022
“Nelson Marlborough Architecture Awards 200 shortlist announced”, Architecture Now, www.architecturenow.nz, 6.4.2022
‘Life in a Verandah’, Architecture NZ, March/April 2022, pg 26

We like trees. In designing a space for our practice, we look to trees for moderation. Our office shelters behind a tree, we gather its light. We sit back further, behind a breathing jungle perimeter And open outwards as verandah.

We collaborate inwards around a shared table This is how we work and how we found 1.5 : 0.5 : 1.0 1.5 floors of concrete to establish a road frontage 0.5 verandah. Us. 1.0 timber with fire rating and maintenance setbacks.

This small side setback safeguards our future. It’s a skylight, a gap in the canopy, a rain opening. For as neighbours build around us our sunshades remove, The perimeter breathes and grows upwards. The moderation adjusts. Our footprint remains.

Fumihiko Maki describes cities as forests for they remain incomplete. Durganand Balsavaar teaches you don’t plant a jungle, you plant a seed. This is what we call Soft Architecture. We maintain space that anticipates change, enables us to refinish and participate. We like forests. We like jungles.

We work in one. We call it Wall É.