He’s also fully aware that he has a long way to go until he achieves the status of a local, but the studio is now well up and running with senior graduate Kipp Nicholson already on staff and recruitment in full steam to bring a third person on board. Provision within the office, located in Reece Crescent, has been made for up to eight staff and later this month, the official opening – a meet-and-greet with clients, prospective clients, builders and consultants – will toast the beginning of a new chapter.
Although there is currently a residential focus to our work in Wanaka, the team is looking to expand across all typologies. That’s keeping Michael busy on the networking front, but he’s also excited to be able to visit the sites of several soon-to-be-completed projects. That includes a courtyard house in Beacon Point Road set among a parklike garden of mature oak trees and another dwelling in Bendemeer with folded-roof forms, a stone-and-cedar palette and the iconic view of mountains reflected in a pond. Another house, in Speargrass Flat, is just about to break ground on site.
His own home, a relatively modest double-gable design, clad in corrugate, may not be an RTA Studio project but it’s already providing the lifestyle he and his family had hoped for. All things considered it shouldn’t take us long to entice more staff to commit to this incomparable destination.