DESIGNING FOR LIFE
Mod Architecture’s Andrew Ward has just received another design award. He speaks to UNO about his surprisingly simple secret to designing a great house: above all else, it needs to feel like a home.
Mod Architecture’s Andrew Ward has just received another design award. He speaks to UNO about his surprisingly simple secret to designing a great house: above all else, it needs to feel like a home.
PHOTO ROSE MINNÉE PHOTOGRAPHY
Before architect Andrew Ward can begin designing a house, he first needs to understand the people who will live in it.
“To me, the house is not just its exterior,” he says. “A lot of planning and design thought goes into that, but it also needs to work with how the interior functions and how you feel within the space.”
In practice, this means thinking about details. like where the surfboards will be stored, whether the bathroom should be light for early birds or darker for night owls, and where the afternoon sun will fall, so outdoor living spaces can make the most of the Bay’s long sunny afternoons and flow naturally into the rooms inside.
Before the design process begins, he imagines himself living in each space, diving into the granular details like where his favourite chair would be, what he’d see when he passed a window and even if the wind would rush in if he opened a door.
He then goes through a highly detailed questionnaire with his clients that’s designed to reveal how they’ll live in the space. This is reasonably extensive to ensure he doesn’t miss important details that they may not have even considered, like how many people will live there, whether they’ll have family staying, whether they work from home and what time they get up in the morning. How do they actually use their house?
He gives the example of a family living near the beach. Their lifestyle might mean they need an outdoor shower for washing off the sand. Take that a step further, and it could mean positioning a door leading directly into the bathroom to make living in the home that much easier. These are the details that turn a great looking house into an equally great place to live.
It’s this lifestyle-driven process and design philosophy that saw Mod Architecture’s Whangamata House receive a Highly Commended in the 2026 ADNZ Resene Architectural Design Awards. The clients came to Andrew with their functional requirements and some loose ideas, including a desire for an internal courtyard, before going on the design journey with him.
Andrew says he designed the house to retain the relaxed feel of a classic beach bach. To that end, there’s no formal main entrance. Instead, the house opens towards the street, reflecting the informality of a beach town in which everyone’s out and about, and a trip to the beach is always on the cards.
The clients also wanted to encourage their adult children to visit regularly, so Andrew designed the garage and additional accommodation to be separate from the main living areas, allowing the owners to live comfortably on their own while still having plenty of space available for when the family comes to stay.
Andrew says the site itself helped shape the design. Running east to west, it offered the opportunity to create an internal courtyard that could become a sheltered outdoor living space, protected from the neighbours, wind and changing sun. Rather than treating the courtyard as an afterthought, Andrew made it central to the way the house works, coupling it with an outdoor zone at the front of the house, with a large veranda providing shade and shelter at different times of year.
The result is a home with several distinct places to gather, depending on the weather, time of day and how the family wants to use them. The judges praised the way the different building volumes work together, creating patterns and shadows, and a strong relationship between the spaces and the home’s central courtyard.
Andrew says that one of his advantages as an architect is that he lives here in the Bay. He understands the character, the weather, how the conditions change throughout the year and, most important of all, the way we all enjoy life and use our homes.
“The most important thing with one of my designs, and the thing that makes it feel like a home, is that it’s designed for you and how you want to live.”
For Andrew, the payoff goes beyond simply creating a beautiful house.
“Good architecture can definitely enhance your life, enhance your wellbeing.”
After all the conversations, decisions, revisions and inevitable moments of anxiety that come with any project, the best part is seeing the finished home come to life.
“If you’ve done a good job, you’ve improved their life,” he smiles. “That’s definitely pretty special.”