walk on the wild side

Homestyle Magazine, Aug/Sept 2024

This experiential design approach is an integral part of Richard’s ethos. He believes that feelings of connection enhance our sense of care. “Beauty releases endorphins. When we encounter beauty, we feel a desire to nurture it. Its perceived beauty compels us to take care of it.”

Enchanted Wilderness

Sage Journal, June 2024

In Browns Bay, Auckland, a garden has been thoughtfully designed with two central priorities: embracing the natural world and creating a haven for the two young children who reside there.

Richard Neville of Neville Design Studio collaborated with a young family to bring their vision of an ‘enchanted wilderness’ to life, crafting a space where people and nature coexist, grow, and learn together.

“My funky concrete seat walls are cooking the planet.” I love this. They are not my words, they are the words of Martin O’Dea. Words that came from last month’s 2022 NZILA Firth Conference. I love this, because these words drive a stake deep into the heart of the habitual norms of landscape architecture. And I too, am guilty.

Morningside Garden - Update

Landscape Architecture Aotearoa, May 2022

A central Auckland residential garden with a commitment to sustainability and biodiversity is a striking addition to the Morningside streetscape.

We first visited the site in early 2021 as part of our occasional project profile series. Then, the landscape architect behind the project told us it was for a family wanting to create a native sanctuary while treading lightly on the land around their home.

Morningside Garden - Treading Lightly

Landscape Architecture Aotearoa, March 2021

An Auckland family wanting to create a native sanctuary while treading lightly on the land around their Morningside home, has brought in Richard of Neville Design Studio for the project.

In the latest instalment of our occasional Project Profile series we are taking our first look at the residential project in the central Auckland suburb where Richard says the brief included the requirement to respond to the site in a sympathetic manner.

Whakawhanaungatanga at West Harbour School

Landscape Architecture Aotearoa, March 2021

West Harbour School Principal Vicki Hitchcock is hugely proud of her decile two school in West Auckland but the main entrance to the school had been bugging her for years.

“Our students and the wider community are important to us and we are a very proud school with strong connections. We want our children to know they deserve the very best, and that includes their physical environment.”

A pub garden brought to life in central auckland

Landscape Architecture Aotearoa, January 2021

What do a pub, a library and a garden have in common? For Richard Neville of Neville Design Studio - the answer was clear - they all tell stories and it was that concept he applied to Galbraith’s Folly.

The result? A design that transforms an underused ‘in-between space’ into a rich and dynamic beer garden at Galbraith’s Alehouse in Mount Eden, Auckland.

Each to their own

NZ House & Garden, May 2017

When Jessie Sun is overseas on one of her many fashion expeditions to bustling cities like Hong Kong and Beijing, she pines for the green serenity of her garden back in Auckland. “When I’m away from home, I miss the sun, the coffee and the veges that we grow. It’s nice to see different cultures when you travel, but it’s always wonderful to come home to our house and our garden,” she says.

Urban Escape

NZ House & Garden, February 2017

It’s not every day you find a stunning city garden where slithering eels are at the centre of its design. But Thomas and Tina Clyma’s award-winning slice of native New Zealand, in the Auckland suburb of Remuera, has been created around the stream that burbles through it, and its slippery inhabitants.

Down the Garden Path

Landscape Architecture New Zealand Magazine, Spring 2015

From about 8 years old I wanted to be an architect and a builder. After high school I was accepted into architecture at Auckland University. They held my place while I went overseas for a year, spending five months in France and five months in Canada. When I returned I did one day of architecture and decided it wasn’t for me. My heart was in landscape architecture and I haven’t looked back since. I’ve always had a passion for the environment. I think our relationship with our environment (built or otherwise) is the essence of what landscape architecture is about.