Walker box

Walker Box is a delightful defiance of the expected. Born from a self- build spirit and squeezed onto a sliver of Wellington hillside, this 63-square-metre tower challenges planning norms, spatial conventions, and the very idea of what a home can be.

This space combines a home, a studio, and a tribute to architect Roger Walker in a colourful, vertical design filled with personality and smart details. Designed by its owner-architect, Micah Rickards of Micah Architecture, the project won the 2025 NZIA Wellington Architecture Awards’ Small Project Architecture category. Quirky, compact, and deeply personal, it embodies Wellington’s architectural flair and the art of creative constraint.

Walker Box was a long-gestating, mostly self-built labour of love. “It involved years of pencil-in-hand design and many more weekends with a drill, hammer, and saw,” Micah says. The project also channels his childhood adventures, when he and his father searched for Roger Walker’s houses scattered throughout Wellington’s hills. His father later became a key collaborator on the build.

Constructed on the site of a friend’s disused garage, the 6x4m footprint rises 8m over three stories, with one function per floor. The choice of concrete block as a primary material made itself, as it was the only feasible material for the amount of substantive retaining work required.

Living sits at the top to capture views and winter sun, the middle holds a bedroom and compact bathroom, a closet, and the lower level offers a flexible space. It’s a ‘big small house’ working hard across every square metre.

“Subdividing has been a win-win for myself and the owners of the host property,” Micah explains. “Our tiny 100m² lot certainly raised Council eyebrows, but it was worth it for having good friends living just up the back. It’s the best sort of community for those of us who like a quiet life.”

“The lower flexible space has a curtain which divides the space. It is currently used as my partner’s hair salon. At other times, the curtains create a guest nook so they can have some privacy. There is space for yoga, a gym, and my grandfather’s piano, where me and music friends get together, on the odd occasion, and have a play.”

The home’s distinctive elements pay homage to Walker: spiral stairs, pops of colour, exposed timber beams, and compressed yet open spaces. A Parkwood Duramax composite front door stands up to Wellington’s harsh weather. Inside, the flooring is finished in Natural Paint Company’s Hard Floor Oil. “I didn’t want anything toxic or plasticky,” Micah says. The sculptural spiral staircase is a kitset design by enzie®, combining sculptural elegance with efficiency. The award-winning steel form suits the home’s tight dimensions and vertical flow.

The exterior and interior palette was developed in collaboration with Lauren Bolton of LOZ Interiors.

“Immediately, I could see this project was special and had instant identity,” she says. “We wanted to elevate its already notable street presence.

“I could see that Micah has a real eye for how light funnels into a space through his masterful window dimensions and placement. Thus, the idea of colour blocking the internal edge of the concrete on various windows in Dulux Mairangi Bay blue emerged. This meant the colour was going to be viewed on both the Exterior and Interior, which was important as the colours thread throughout, and create such a beautiful connection,” Lauren says.

Micah’s precise window placement became the springboard for an inventive colour-blocking approach “We used Dulux Mairangi Bay blue on the internal concrete edges of key windows, so the colour is visible both inside and out,” Lauren says. “It threads the entire home together beautifully.”

A playful Dulux Intensity Sunshine yellow was chosen for the underside of the rainwater head and downpipe. “I love looking up at the blue sky and seeing that pop of yellow from the street,” she adds. “We also used Dulux Moutere red and Oriental Bay to provide a vibrant but cohesive exterior base,” she says.

Due to being dug 3.2 metres into a hillside, the engineer on the project, Chris Speed from Dunning Thornton, suggested using block for the entire structure. “In a small project like this, it made sense. It’s quick to assemble, cost-effective, and serves as both structure and cladding, and is low maintenance,” Micah says.

With a wide range of influences behind it, this building remains unmistakably one of a kind. Inside, the contrast between solid forms and open spaces adds to its compelling atmosphere.

“I focus on smaller home design, where small also means beautiful, warm, efficient and hard-working … with a playful touch,” Micah says. The solid shell enabled Micah and his father, now in his 80s, to complete the interior themselves, a poetic full circle from their early Walker-spotting days.

Contact details:

Micah Architecture
027 309 9743
www.micah.co.nz