Catherine Ford,

Director.

BAs. Barch. CPHD

Since before Catherine graduated from Auckland University School of Architecture, she always had a focus on Sustainable Design. She has worked in Ireland and mainland Europe, Australia, and New Zealand and designed with many different climatic, social, political ,cultural and legal factors coming into play at defining what we need and perceive as beautiful space.Having worked early in her career with a forefront Industrial designer in Central Europe, her work with tiny houses was displayed at the Cologne building Expo in Germany. She has been living and working between Europe and New Zealand for the past 20 years so is in the unique position to understand how the New Zealand building industry has opportunities to learn from larger markets with well established industries. She has recently returned from Ireland, where she worked alongside a Conservation Architect, and attended the latest exhibitions in Architectural energy efficient design, where ‘nearly zero’ buildings are an embedded part of the legislative building regulations, so is familiar with the most effective methods to attain these carbon zero goals. Having worked on various buildings from sports, educational, institutional and also large scale residential, but she has also worked directly with clients on smaller domestic scale residential work. She has expertise in tiny home living. She is also a Certified Passive House Designer, able to use the most efficient design and construction methods alongside internationally recognized energy modelling technology to get to net zero, and or high performance buildings.

She has also coordinated courses and taught at Tertiary Institutions in New Zealand and continues to offer education locally in workshops for homeowners and schools.

Returning to her home in Taranaki with a focus on helping people create beautiful healthy efficient spaces, is consistent with her long standing passion for high quality design.