A year of Here! Who knew? When we started the magazine a year ago, Aotearoa was still in lockdown – we ran the magazine remotely, connecting with architects, advertisers and contributors from afar. We sent it to print and hoped like hell it would float.

People often ask how it’s going and I just laugh – mainly out of sheer absurdity. It’s going well: it floats. But it’s still weird, running your own shop after years of working for the only major magazine publisher in town. It’s also liberating: no more meetings, no more reducing budgets to increase profitability, no more corporate hierarchy. I am writing this with the front door open, the weak winter sun washing in, and I am wearing Birkenstocks and socks. 

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Almost exactly a year after we launched, the team and I went along to the Auckland Town Hall for the Voyager Media Awards, where Here was a finalist in the Best Newsstand Magazine category. We won Best Cover, for Here 01. We were ecstatic: our little magazine! At the national magazine awards! 

And at the same time – in fact, as we’ve been making this magazine – we’ve been putting the finishing touches to our new website. Our first issue took six weeks to make. The website has taken a year. (I think there's an emoji for that.) It represents an extraordinary effort by design director Sarah Gladwell and the team at Journey Digital and we’re really proud of it; you can read more about it on p.17. 

Over the course of the year of Here, there have been big changes to family life. We used to run through every day, a nanny picked up the kids and it never felt like we were fully in one place. First I started working from home, then my wife Hannah quit her job to come and work with us full-time. 

There’s more pressure now – everything is riding on this – but less stress. I love that. We work from home and pick up our kids from school and when our son Ira is in the mood, we go by bike. The other day he came in and saw our latest cover. "What? Wait!" he shouted. "NUMBER SEVEN!"

Thank you for your support. We’re looking forward to the second year of Here. xx