Why Melanie Bourke is mentoring women to succeed in architecture

“I’ve always had a fascination for how people live,” shares Melanie. “I told my parents when I was seven that this was what I was going to do – I was adamant that I wanted to be an architect. I was always designing huts and making models of houses, drawing houses and painting houses. It’s always been about housing for me – that was what I saw as a child architects doing.

“I was also inspired by my Grandfather who was involved in the construction industry and had been a POW of the Japanese in WWII. While he was in the camp, he had done sketches of his dream house back in New Zealand,” says Melanie, with the drawings detailing right down to the individual rooms of the house.

“I still have those sketches, and had always grown up with these amazing little sketches drawn on the back of a menu or any piece of paper he could find – even some are done on bark.”

When Melanie’s grandfather returned to Aotearoa, he built his family some stunning homes – including one named the Marble House because of the amount of stone used.

“I wasn’t aware of Grandad’s drawings until I was probably 10, but I’d always loved drawing as a child and I always had a photographic memory of houses. If I went to somebody’s house, even years later I can still draw a plan of what that house looks like – it’s always fascinated me the way spaces are made.”

About four years ago, after working for a boutique residential architectural firm in Auckland for a number of years, the opportunity presented itself for Melanie to set up her own practice – Bourke Architects. 

“It just felt like the right time to go out on my own and start to explore some of the creative ideas that I wanted to pursue, and I really haven’t looked back from there.”

She finds being in practice a rewarding experience, working with her close-knit team to realise clients’ dream spaces: “Our clients are very passionate people and we work in a very collaborative way with them to realise their dreams and aspirations and create a real individual focus on what they want in their home, and provide them with opportunities to experience an uplifting experience in their house.”

This passion for residential architecture is shared by Melanie in her work mentoring female architects – particularly women after they’ve returned from maternity leave – as part of the Architecture+Women initiative.

“There are so many women in architecture – it’s about 50% now, or even slightly more. But the profession has to work very hard to make sure that these women stay and become senior members of the profession,” says Melanie.

“Organisations like Architecture+Women are doing a wonderful job of ensuring that women are both visible in the profession, but also feel supported at key times in their life – and that’s a great thing, because that hasn’t always been the case. It has always been traditionally a male-dominated profession and hard for women to make their way through practices, or get visibility.”

Melanie also feels that architecture in New Zealand is at an interesting place at the moment: “We're at a real crossroads where there's so many more opportunities and different ways of living that have been opened up with the density that the government is wanting to achieve in our urban areas. I’m also seeing a lot of multi-generational living, where families are coming together and creating spaces that work for two or three generations on the same site, and are adaptable over a long period of time – people are wanting to stay in their homes for longer.”

A focus on energy efficiency and climate change is also evident, and for Melanie, acoustics are always a key consideration.

Outside of the office, Melanie is an accomplished singer – allowing her to have a special awareness of how sounds work in spaces.

“At the moment, I've been doing a number of houses where I've been really trying to bring the sky into the buildings and will often have quite high ceilings. Someone asked if this was because I’m a singer, and I hadn't really ever thought about that,” says Melanie.

“I guess that your life experiences do contribute to your overall thinking towards architecture and what you bring into it.”

Words by Cassie Birrer