Practice
A small studio, built on a personal way of working.
Since 2017
Founded by Forrest Chen, Registered Architect.
Forrest Architects was established in 2017 in Takapuna, Auckland, beginning as a Licensed Building Practitioner design practice heavily focused on residential work. Founder and director Forrest Chen set out to create architecture that is both functional and deeply personal. "For us, spaces that reflect the unique stories, aspirations, and lifestyles of the people who commission them are what matters".
Nearly a decade on, that founding idea still guides every project we take on, whether it be small or large scaled. Good design starts with genuinely understanding the people and the site in front of us.
Philosophy
Storytelling as the key to good design.
We see architecture as a bridge between the private and the public — between the intimacy of a home and the wider context of its street, landscape and community.
Storytelling, to us, means understanding the wider emotional connection our clients have to the world around them. It's this understanding of a family's rituals, a site's light, a material's weight which enables considered design, rather than decoration applied after the fact.
We look for the organic qualities already present in a site and in a brief, and work to integrate them rather than override them, so that the finished building feels inevitable as though it could only have turned out this way.
The team