Graeme North Architects

Graeme North is a New Zealand Registered Architect with over 40 years experience with hundreds of projects to his credit. A dedicated eco-architect, his work can be found from Otago to Northland, garnering him both a national and international reputation for his design of natural buildings. He is Chair of the Earth Building Association of NZ, and a founding trustee of YIMFY - Yes In My Front Yard, a centre for approbate building technology. www.yimfy.com His practice specialises in designs that use a wide range of natural materials and appropriate building technology as well as offering specialist assistance or peer review in these specialties for other owners, designers and/or Building Consent authorities. Graeme is particularly interested in the integrated relationship between plants and buildings, a concept that incorporates permaculture principles, a concept he calls “livingscapes”. Graeme was Inaugural Chair of the Earth Building Association of New Zealand, and remains Chair of the Standards New Zealand Technical Committee responsible for the NZ Earth Building Standards that were published in 1998. He has received various awards and commendations during his career including the 1990 NZ Commemoration Medal for Services to NZ and the NZIA Research Award for the NZ Earth Building Standards. In 2007 he was made a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Architecture, and in 2010 he received a Winston Churchill Fellowship to investigate setting up an appropriate building technology centre – something still being developed as a networking project named YIMFY – Yes, In My Front Yard! , which will be the hub of a national organisation to research and educate about the use of natural materials and appropriate technology.