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Architects Reimagine Affordable Homes — 2025 Fellowship Winners Announced
Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects in partnership with the Wilson family have today announced Cynthia Yuan and Norman Wei as the recipients of the 2025 F. Gordon Wilson Fellowship for Affordable Housing. Their proposal, Loose-Fit Futures, has been recognised for its multicultural approach to rethinking domestic space in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Wei, a registered architect at Moller Architects, and Yuan, a project manager at The University of Auckland, have been awarded the fellowship to investigate Loose-fit Futures, a concept that explores how to reduce the insulated core of a home to only essential functions, while extending additional spaces with loose-fit structures.
Such spaces are multi-functional areas designed for gathering, working, and other activities, but don’t carry the cost or regulation burden of fully enclosed rooms. Inspired by Māori, Pasifika and migrant populations in Aotearoa, these spaces could transform affordable housing typologies.
As part of their research the pair will investigate spatial prototyping, performance testing and regulatory analysis of Loose-fit spaces to develop housing designs that are affordable and resilient across different site types.
Advertisement - scroll to continue reading“We are grateful and honoured to be the recipients of the 2025 fellowship,” says Norman Wei. “Flexibility and adaptability have long been integral to architectural traditions in Aotearoa and we are excited to explore how these aspects can be reinterpreted in contemporary contexts to create innovative and efficient solutions for affordable housing.”
The Fellowship is named in honour of influential New Zealand government architect F. Gordon Wilson and supports research that challenges conventions and pushes the boundaries of architectural thinking in New Zealand.
Julia Mandell-Kerr, granddaughter of F. Gordon Wilson and member of the 2025 jury, says “We’re very impressed with this year’s F. Gordon Wilson fellows. We found them to be both bold and pragmatic. Their proposal rethinks how we live in domestic spaces, retooling the basic organisation of our homes and their relationship to our natural surroundings. We’re excited to see where they take their ideas and how they transfer them into real-world applications.”
Mark Abbot, Chief Executive of the NZIA, celebrated the announcement, saying:
“Cynthia and Norman are exactly the kind of recipients the F. Gordon Wilson Fellowship was designed to support — critical thinkers with a drive to improve the social outcomes of architecture. Their Loose-Fit Futures project responds not just to the housing crisis, but to the broader challenge of creating architecture that adapts to the cultures and lifestyles of occupants.”
The Loose-Fit Futures project was one of five projects shortlisted in July 2025.
The jury was comprised of Julia Mandell-Kerr (architect and granddaughter of F. Gordon Wilson), Dr Kay Saville-Smith, Marko den Breems, Peter McPherson and Brian Donnelly, ONZM.
Previous Fellowship winners include Patrick Kelly in 2024 and Third Studio in 2023.
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