KEY POINTS:
At its best, Auckland is a rich mix of character suburbs, precincts, and buildings audaciously clustered around volcanoes, headlands and harbours. There has been an increased environmental and urban design consciousness which is resulting in better buildings, neighbourhoods and cities. It has impacted the way architects design and we are all better for it.
I won my first design award for an underground toilet block. Then I won a competition for a bus shelter design. As modest as they were, these awards spurred me on in my career.
The Civic Theatre restoration ranks up there with the Auckland City hospital and the AUT University campus developments in terms of the most challenging projects I've worked on. The Civic involved taking a defunct heritage building and breathing new life into it without apparent change.
I can't talk with my hands in my pockets. They need to be free to gesticulate or I dry up. Through painful experience I no longer use hand gestures as a signal to others to change slides in a presentation. Talking with a glass in my hand can be challenging too.
I always wanted to be an architect. I still have my kindergarten drawing of a well-proportioned two-storey house with a surprisingly complex roof. At primary school I won a watercolour competition with a rendering of Edinburgh Castle and I continued making structures out of painted timber blocks when more normal kids had long since consigned them to the attic.
I believe in the underlying goodness of human nature, the strength of great relationships, the value of trust, the need to nurture the talent that lies within everyone, the importance of humour and the power of collaboration.
It is amazing the number of people who say that they would become an architect if they had their time again. There is also a growing group of architectural junkies who are well-read and are keen to discuss the recent work of obscure European architects.
A lot of debt in our society today supports lifestyles that are not really affordable. I think that despite the obvious advantages, the interest-free debt that banks offer students can easily ingrain bad habits that are hard to shake later.
My golden rule of dressing is to wear good quality cotton shirts. I have bought mine from the same supplier for 20 years. They tailor them to suit my extra-long arms.
I have been known to pop next door in my dressing gown for an early morning coffee with a neighbour who also enjoys watering the garden at first light. Walking back down the street in your pyjamas mid-morning on a Saturday does raise eyebrows.
I wish I had never given away my vinyl collection, especially when my son bought a new turntable. He enjoys a lot of the same music that I grew up with. o Richard Harris is the president of the New Zealand Institute of Architects and director of Auckland architect firm Jasmax. Architecture Weekend runs until tomorrow in Auckland.
