Design Principles Pod

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Designing with people sounds like a slogan until you hear what it demands in real life. Recorded at the NZIA Institute Conference, we sit down with Sydney-based co-founders David Kaunitz and Ka Wai Yeung, whose practice has built an international reputation for socially responsible, culturally sensitive architecture with remote communities across Australia and the Pacific. The big idea is deceptively simple: stop designing for communities and start designing with them, even when that means the brief doesn’t exist yet.

We talk through how projects actually get off the ground when governments or organisations can see a need (like aged care) but the land, approvals, and community alignment are still uncertain. David explains why a holistic architectural role matters here: budgets, consultants, risk, and persistence are part of the job, not optional extras. We also unpack what respectful engagement looks like, including working with existing community governance while intentionally creating safe ways for quieter or excluded voices to be heard.

The practicalities are just as real as the principles. Remote work can mean 1,000-kilometre drives, repeated trips, and extended time on Country, plus the challenge of growing a team with the patience and temperament for long-haul trust-building. We also dig into delivery: why local materials and local construction methods matter in post-disaster reconstruction, how maintainability can make or break a building, and what “best practice” means when the goal is long-term community ownership.

If you care about community-led design, participatory architecture, Indigenous-led outcomes, and making architecture genuinely useful, this conversation will sharpen your thinking. Subscribe, share it with a designer who needs to hear it, and leave a review, what’s one way you’ve seen listening change a project?
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Follow us on @designpriciplespod on Instagram and if you wish to contact us hit our DMs or our personal pages. We love to hear from you it really encourages us to keep going and the ideas and feedback we get from the listeners is awesome!

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Two architects walk into a conference and we hand them a mic. What comes out is a fast, honest look at how New Zealand architects make decisions when nobody has time for fluff. We’re joined by Hamish McLachlan (Bowen and McLachlan Architects, also Architecture Zero Zero) and Rob Paulin (Paulin Studio), the two winners of our In:Situ ticket giveaway, for a quick-fire Q&A that turns into a surprisingly deep conversation about the design process and the built environment in Aotearoa.

We start where great projects actually start: the relationship. How do you tell if you’re a good fit for a client, and when should you walk away? From there we move into light and site research, why orientation still matters even with modelling tools, and what you learn the hard way when accuracy slips or QA gets assumed instead of checked.

Then we zoom out to the big stuff: designing for beauty and resilience in New Zealand, what “timeless” really means when styles and trends keep cycling, and why ugly buildings don’t survive because nobody fights to keep them. We also get practical about materiality and longevity, from mass timber and local materials to the renewed case for stone, plus why patina and imperfection can be a feature rather than a flaw. Along the way we talk prefabrication, rammed earth, affordability, and a simple A-B system for prioritising what deserves the budget.

If you care about New Zealand architecture, sustainable building, and making spaces that feel good to live in, press play, then subscribe, share it with a designer mate, and leave a review. What do you want to see change in NZ architecture over the next 20 years?
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Follow us on @designpriciplespod on Instagram and if you wish to contact us hit our DMs or our personal pages. We love to hear from you it really encourages us to keep going and the ideas and feedback we get from the listeners is awesome!

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In this episode we are talking with Dr Albert Refiti, professor at AUT and co-director of the Vā Moana Research Centre, about Vā: the relational space that holds people, culture, hierarchy, and belonging together. Once you hear Vā described this way, Pacific architecture stops being a set of shapes and starts reading like a living map of relationships across time.

We dig into why key forms and spatial rules have stayed so consistent for roughly 3,000 years across Polynesia, and how elements like platforms, posts, and the ridge beam carry social order and ancestral memory. Then we follow what happens when those systems move into the diaspora. Without villages, Pacific communities in New Zealand often rely on churches, halls, and civic buildings, and architecture can become an urgent marker of identity. That urgency also creates change, compromise, and sometimes misunderstanding, especially when contemporary building codes, materials, and procurement collide with cultural meaning.

Albert shares sharp reflections on projects in Auckland and Wellington, including what it means when a symbolic element disappears and how a “gap” can become an honest architectural moment rather than something to hide. We also turn to housing affordability, co-housing, intergenerational living, kaitiakitanga, and what Pacific communities might learn from papakāinga and the urban marae model. If you care about Pacific architecture, cultural identity in design, or building community-centred places in Aotearoa New Zealand, this one will stretch how you think.

Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a designer or student, and leave a review so others can find it.
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Follow us on @designpriciplespod on Instagram and if you wish to contact us hit our DMs or our personal pages. We love to hear from you it really encourages us to keep going and the ideas and feedback we get from the listeners is awesome!

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If you’ve ever wondered why New Zealand can’t seem to build medium density housing that feels calm, green, and genuinely liveable, this conversation puts a spotlight on the real blockers and the real opportunities. This episode we’re joined by Wellington architects Tim Gittos and Caro Robertson from Spacecraft Architects, fresh off winning the F. Gordon Wilson Fellowship for their research project DIY Density. 

We get specific about what “DIY” actually means here: not people building their own houses with their hands, but everyday owners and small groups having the tools to lead development decisions, rather than settling for developer-led products. Tim and Caro explain why the three-storey walk-up is such a powerful missing-middle typology, how it can replace “sausage flat” backyard infill, and why facing the street while going up can preserve light, privacy, and neighbourhood character. We also talk about what matters beyond the dwelling: arrival, shared outdoor space, fewer driveways, stronger streetscapes, and keeping trees and permeable ground so our suburbs don’t bake and flood. 

The big theme is certainty. We unpack why risk and unknowability around consenting, cost, and process stops good housing before it starts, and how replicable models, precedents, and even pre-consented pathways could make affordable housing more achievable. Tim and Caro share insights from their work on the New South Wales Housing Pattern Book, including what it takes to make pattern books useful in the real world, and who might administer something similar here as planning rules evolve. 

If you care about urban design, housing affordability, walkable neighbourhoods, and building better cities in Aotearoa New Zealand, hit play, share it with a mate, and subscribe so you don’t miss what comes next. After listening, what would convince you that medium density could be a better way to live?
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Follow us on @designpriciplespod on Instagram and if you wish to contact us hit our DMs or our personal pages. We love to hear from you it really encourages us to keep going and the ideas and feedback we get from the listeners is awesome!

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Late decisions are the real budget blowouts, and they’re usually a symptom of the wrong team structure. We’re joined by Verity Lawrence and Lou Stringer, two interior designers working across Central Otago and Queenstown, to unpack what genuine architect interior designer collaboration looks like when it starts early and stays respectful. The conversation moves past glossy “before and after” talk and into the practical mechanics: when designers get brought in, who builds the consultant team, and why overlap between disciplines is where the magic often happens. 

We also get honest about the messy side of the building industry in New Zealand. Verity and Lou share renovation horror stories where projects go sideways, clients are traumatised, and designers end up doing far more than finishes and furniture. We talk about trust, communication, and how dropping ego (and the old guarded approach to ideas and IP) can lead to smoother builds and better outcomes that everyone is proud to put their name on. 

From there, we zoom right in to the intimacy of interior design. The best homes come from understanding daily rituals: storage habits, morning routines, family life, and the little details that make a space feel like it fits. We tackle trends without snobbery, asking how to borrow what you love while still designing for longevity, proportion, and material quality so you’re not stuck regretting today’s “hot” choice tomorrow. 

Finally, we dig into what “interiors” even means, why the public still mixes up interior designer, decorator, and interior architect, and how ethics, ongoing learning, and clear value help clients make safer decisions. If you care about better residential design, smarter renovations, and a built environment that feels coherent, hit play, then subscribe, share the episode with a mate, and leave a review so more Kiwi clients and designers can find it.
Please Like and Subscribe it really helps :)
Follow us on @designpriciplespod on Instagram and if you wish to contact us hit our DMs or our personal pages. We love to hear from you it really encourages us to keep going and the ideas and feedback we get from the listeners is awesome!