WEL Architecture
After watching his family get sick in cold, mouldy, minimum code buildings, Director Joe Lyth's passion grew for building performance and occupant health. His belief is that homes should achieve a standard far above what the NZ Building Code achieves, but that this doesn’t necessarily mean significant additional cost if this is considered holistically throughout the design process.
He produced his own project Lower Saddle Passive House, using SIPs, to ensure his family’s health, and show that healthier, lower energy and affordable buildings are possible for everyone in New Zealand, at standard budgets. He has since used the project as a pathway to test approaches to achieving better buildings, and as an education tool for the wider industry.
After over 8 years working on a wide range of projects in New Zealand, Joe decided to focus his work on helping the industry move towards buildings that are healthier, lower energy, and kinder on both people, and planet. He decided to take the plunge and open WEL - a practice that provides services that include design, consult and teach, to provide value in his own work, and to the wider industry.
Working with WEL puts performance and health alongside beauty and function, to deliver buildings that will last longer, be lower maintenance, have lower running costs, be low energy, more comfortable, and a lighter touch on the planet.
WEL provides a range of services that can be tailored to meet the needs of many projects:
- Architectural Design
- Specialist Consulting
- Teaching & Upskilling for education & industry
Whether you're a homeowner looking for an Architect, a designer looking to assess the performance of your project, an industry professional looking to up-skill and educate your team, or a developer looking for a knowledgeable and reliable consultant
WEL's work seeks to balance budget, beauty and build-ability alongside health, performance and efficiency.
Each project is individual to the client, and comes together as a collaboration between the whole team - client, designer, builder, engineer; each member’s input is valued. The buildings are ‘of their place’, designed specifically for the site they inhabit to capitalise on views, orientation, air flow and solar gain.
This is built upon with the tools of Passive House and Homestar to create buildings that are beautiful, comfortable, low energy, low carbon, and kind to people and planet.
Simple palettes of natural materials are combined with splashes and flashes of colour. Textures and tones lift spaces that are carefully considered, sized, and designed to meets the clients needs, with form and light bringing them to life.
A wealth of learning and experience informs each project, and enables WEL to accommodate a range of work:
- Extension, renovation and remediation of existing buildings, and new buildings, in a variety of contexts.
- Private and public work in a wide range of scales - from small extensions and sleep-outs to large homes and multi unit developments. Trail shelters, sculptural installations and furniture, to libraries, masterplans and schools.
- Working with both new, reused and recycled materials.
- Experience with making and construction provides an understanding of how to build things as well as draw them, resulting in a balance of hands on practicality, with theory and science
