There was a point on a cold, rainy Tuesday in late August in Ōtautahi, when architect and academic Andrew Barrie turned to us and said, “This is kind of where the architecture stops.” He was standing in the ground-floor living room of a three-storey townhouse, part of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church Stage 2, a development of 11 apartments and townhouses, along with commercial space, which is our Best House Aotearoa 2026.

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That ground-floor space was lovely. It had a slightly higher than normal stud height, and birch-ply cabinetry that stretched down one wall, before turning into a step with integrated storage. Each dwelling comes with a standard table and chairs, to a design by Andrew, which is a move I’ve always found touching.

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I understood what he meant – upstairs the spaces are functional and well planned, though they won’t win any interior awards. But to me, that was beside the point. For what Andrew and his colleagues from the church have made is extraordinary. Eleven new homes, in any context, is something to be celebrated. When they are designed with this much thought, it’s even more special.

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To get here, the clients and architect had to work out an entirely new way of doing things, balancing the need to earn rent from both commercial spaces and tenants – a mixture of subsidised renters and those eligible for social housing. They started from zero and they are now looking to stages three and even four. They’ve overcome the classic bind of many community organisations, which are asset-rich but cash-poor with buildings that require a lot of maintenance. This is the direct opposite of that: a revenue-generating asset that also looks after people.

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For some of the tenants, their previous home was either a refugee camp or a motel. I’d invite you to think about that for a moment. People in need – without a secure place to live – not only get a roof over their heads, but a building as remarkable as this.

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There are things that are not strictly necessary: a cloister runs around the outside, providing shelter and also a communal space to meet neighbours. There’s a generous open central courtyard, and enclosed private gardens. There is the aforementioned cabinetry. Exposed concrete ceilings give you 200mm more head height. Some would argue people in community housing don’t care about or need such touches. I’d argue the opposite – spaces like this offer a sense of dignity that tells people they are worthy of our care.

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We loved all of that, but there’s something bigger here, and that’s what the rōpū and I found so powerful. The church has developed a model that is now being rolled out around the country to other organisations. More power to them, we say – and congratulations.

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