A hillside sculpture in which to live and work, this family home and office — the 2024 City Home of the Year — is generous in places, intimate in others.

Named the 2023 Home of the Year, this expansive family home stretches across a quiet valley on the outskirts of Auckland. Conceived as both sanctuary and stage, it gathers a series of spaces in a linear procession — anchoring, protecting and embracing the rhythms of daily life.

A home for a family of five on the edge of a park. A bucolic landscape, a busy city road, and a house the intermediary; a unified buffer between.

Two buildings — one beneath the canopy, the other hovering above it — occupy a steep pōhutukawa-clad site on Auckland’s wild west coast.

For the couple who bought this apartment in the heart of the city, the brief to rework their dwelling — set within a ten-floor building — was simple: a sanctuary that offered comfort and ease while they visited family, and the freedom to lock up and leave.

Japanese-influenced, this shingle-clad small holiday home is an exercise in restraint, minimalism and inherent warmth.

Having found a generous plot of land in Remuera, Auckland architect and owner Paul Clarke of Studio2 Architects set out to design a ‘forever home’ — one that paid homage to the past while embracing the present and preparing for the future.

There’s a quiet poetry embedded in the landscape surrounding this home — a subtlety that has been translated into form by Rowe Baetens Architecture. Drawing from the nearby volcanic terrain, the architects have created a spatial and material language that is deeply grounded in place.

Cantilevering dramatically towards the water, this design defies the constraints of a steep site, anchoring the heart of the home to the land.

Julian Guthrie reimagines a beachfront home in Pauanui, transforming what was once a 1970s party pad into a refined, minimalist escape.

In one of the most stringent heritage-zoned streets of Herne Bay, Hoxha Bailey Architects faced an arduous task: securing approval for a substantial addition to a prominent double-fronted villa.

Inspired by a very internationalist, robust coastal home for an award-winning film, this beach house by Sumich Chaplin Architects offers ambience and plenty of drama.

Expressive geometries, a high level of craft, and connections with its landscape elevate a small number of materials into a polished, relaxed home full of moments of wonder and surprise.

This sophisticated home by Case Ornsby is a sculptural response to the Waipara Valley’s unique geology.

Set on a long, narrow site in Papamoa this family home takes full advantage of its coastal position while negotiating a demanding footprint.

A building of the South Pacific. A sculptural pavilion of asymmetry that came first. A trio of pavilions, one for living and two for sleeping, that came second. A place for contemplation; spaces for restoration.

An exploration of materiality, a celebration of craft, and a desire to create a memorable sculpture within a tight, city-fringe context have resulted in this multi-award–winning home by Jack McKinney Architects.

Gel Architects have transformed a long-abandoned, dilapidated church into four refined apartments, deftly balancing ecclesiastical gravitas with a dose of contemporary cool.