Future in the frame

"It never entered my head to make other than high quality", says Michael Draper.

Award-winning furniture designer Michael Draper has spent his career avoiding knee-jerk market trends, preferring to produce designs that evolve, yet remain compatible.

His simple yet deceptively complex designs attract a small but loyal clientele, many of whom return several years later to add another Draper piece to their collection.

"It never entered my head to make other than high quality. This keeps the numbers down, but I'm not interested in numbers."

Instead, he prefers to produce designs that endure physically and aesthetically.

"I like to hear about parents who bought furniture and whose children are looking forward to owning it one day," says Draper, who was born and raised in Northern Ireland.

He has no formal qualifications in design, though his creativity was fired by textile design and manufacturing, with family connections in Northern Ireland and later with his own large textile-manufacturing facility in New Zealand.

After arriving in New Zealand 40 years ago, Draper moved from designing textiles to furniture in the 1970s.

"The textile business took me back to Europe often, and I caught the feel for the furniture I wanted to make in New Zealand. Rejecting the notion that timber-based furniture was the only option, I decided that my furniture would be steel-framed."

He began making trolleys before expanding his range to include shelving, desks and tables. From his Ponsonby studio he has spent 25 years creating a range for indoors and outdoors, all with the distinctive Draper stamp.

Michael Draper's 10 favourite things

1. Sitting on the top deck at home with my gourmet cook and partner, Rowena, eating fresh seafood, and enjoying the view to the distant Waitakeres. It's a free testing service for our Michael Draper outdoor tables and chairs.

2. Villa Maria's Reserve Wairau Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2004
Marlborough I like to savour it at home or at Villa Maria's new Mangere winery, where I can sit and enjoy our latest furniture design - without the slightest touch of bias, of course.

3. Enjoying the company of friends at home
Some have contributed art and photography to the house, like Miriam van Wezel's The Redhair Painting, or The Plug Series Blue Acrylic by Ron Left.

4. A bookshelf  
I designed it and it has built-in dimming reading lights, a projector, and built-in headphones. These facilities allow my partner, the bookworm, and I to indulge either form of entertainment separately, or together, in the same space. The shelf is part of a wider design concept completed this year.

5. DVDs
I am particularly enjoying the constantly improving sound and vision quality of music DVDs these days. My favourites are Diana Krall's Live in Paris and, at the risk of showing my age, Phil Collins' Finally the First Farewell Tour, also from Paris.

6. Books
As a visual person, the books of two dear friends have excited me this year. Pete Bossley's new book in the A4 New Zealand Architects Monograph series, and Harvey Benge's latest, and possibly best, Killing Time in Paradise.

7. Showscreen
Our new design called Showscreen, a foldaway sound-and-vision set-up. I enjoy producing a new piece, from the initial design through to manufacture and photography in our studio.

8. Getting away to the seaside bach owned by a couple of generous friends, where the tide cuts you off from the world, and the water and sky take over.

9. New Zealand glass and ceramics
I love using them for close-up shots of the furniture. We have a great relationship with Masterworks Gallery, Ponsonby. Photographing the designs when completed is somehow the final reward for everybody's effort before the client gets delivery.

10. Our house
Living in an eccentric, three-level, early Noel Lane house in the city. It has such perfect orientation with three levels of decking. Furniture design and manufacturing is blisteringly time-consuming so the 20-year-old house is a mix of concluded projects and unresolved maintenance.