Villa

Despite the interest in contemporary architecture, it's a fact that more people in inner-city suburbs throughout New Zealand end up living in a villa than a house of any other architectural style.

Everyone at some stage finds themselves doing some renovation work, which has tended in recent years to revolve around "blowing out the back". In recent years, architects have come up with far more interesting solutions to turn villas into a workable house for 21st-century living.

Villa looks at around 25 of those solutions as well as at villas that have remained untouched over the years and at villas that are down on their uppers, including a spectacular and infamous student flat.

Photographed by Patrick Reynolds, the text on each house is written by Home NZ editor Jeremy Hansen. In addition, the book kicks off with a substantial survey of villa architecture by leading heritage architect Jeremy Salmond, whose late 1980s book on old New Zealand houses is the gold standard text for restorationists.

Magnificently designed and crammed with photographs of everything from the original photos of villas in the 1890s and fragments of glorious old wallpaper, from totally untouched interiors to the most innovative additions, this book is a must-have for villa dwellers and villa lovers.