Extending building life, reducing carbon, and unlocking new housing models. This panel examines how New Zealand could consider Retrofit First principles to increase housing supply and residential amenity and how we could extend the life expectancy – while reducing carbon and maintaining affordability – of both our existing buildings and our new buildings. What other housing typologies, models and scales are required to meet New Zealand’s housing needs?
Christopher Kelly brings a conceptual rigor to all the stages of a project and a deep understanding of the processes needed to produce landmark buildings, honed over a career that is equal parts local and global.
Kelly was born in the Wairarapa and studied architecture at Victoria University of Wellington. He worked under Ian Athfield until NZ registration. Later, he undertook a post-graduate course in architecture at the Fine Arts Stadelschule Frankfurt. In 1989, he joined Renzo Piano’s Kansai Air Terminal team in the initial design phase of the joint venture for the 1.4 billion USD building. He became one of the project architects in the detailed design stage, leading the construction documentation of 1.6 km long air terminal roof in the Osaka office.
In 1992, he returned from Italy to establish Architecture Workshop in Wellington, building it into the internationally recognised practice that it is today. In 1997, Piano invited Kelly to collaborate on a commercial tower and apartment project in Sydney’s CBD. He has been a keynote speaker at the Sydney 2004 Conference, won a worldwide Emerging Architect Award in 2004, and presented his work as part of the lecture series at the RIBA in London. In 2009, he was one of the international judges of the inaugural World Festival of Architecture in Barcelona and speaker at the Stadelschule Alumni conference in Frankfurt. Closer to home, he has served on the NZIA National Executive and the awards jury.