The house of the year has been named by the New Zealand Institute of Architects, but it's not a mega mansion, rather it's a lived-in family home.
The submission was titled as "Our House" by architect Lisa Webb who took home this year's Sir Ian Athfield award for housing in the New Zealand Architecture Awards.
This is Webb's first home and she designed it herself three years ago on a subdivided section of 332sq metres in Auckland's Westmere. The house itself, containing three bedrooms and two living areas, is only 145sq metres.
"When we bought the section coming from the quarter of an acre site across the road we brought our kids over and told them we bought it and my daughter burst into tears she's like 'you can't fit a house on there' she loves it now of course, everyone was concerned whether we could literally fit a house on to the site," Webb said.
Not a single inch was wasted in this property with every corner utilised inside. They even managed to fit a pool in outside.
The house champions sustainability with its solar panels and just one toilet.
Judges deeming it award-winning because of it's intensification done so well on a subdivided property, saying it's an inspirational window into what the future of Auckland could look like.
"I think we're facing an existential crisis with housing and architects have a role to play in thinking of different ways of housing people. I think there are lots of solutions to the housing crisis and this is just one. I would love it if this house is seen as an example of how to build in a small way well," Webb said. She is the first female lead practitioner to have won the award since it began in 2015.
The Christchurch Town Hall took out the John Scott Award for Public Architecture and The Hotel Britomart in Auckland won the Sir Miles Warren Award for Commercial Architecture.
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