CUSTANCE
Architects
About us
Over 30 years Custance has become a respected and multi-award winning practice.
Using our collective knowledge, experience and empathy, we have created spaces that transform people’s lives and better equip them to accommodate change.
The tools we traditionally use are strategic planning, architecture, interior design and industrial design, however we have learned to wield them in different ways. We have developed these tools to allow people and organisations to experience space that is fully human and fully alive; space to live well, to create, to innovate and to grow – to enable face to face contact in a way that digital space does not.
Clients return to us in both New Zealand and for 14 years now, Australia, where we’ve built a multi-disciplinary, trans-Tasman practice that focuses on people and their well being, not just the places we build for them. We believe in human touch and those two words hold the secret of our longevity.
Before we begin any commission, whether a home , a corporate interior, a new building, an urban master plan or a strategic vision, we begin by discovering answers to fundamental human questions. Who? What? Why? For us these come before the traditional ‘where’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ of the brief and build specifications. They help us see beyond immediate needs. They help us understand people and design spaces that have enduring value.
Jonathan Custance
Jonathan Launched Custance in New Zealand over 25 years ago and established the Sydney Office in 2000.
He has steered Custance to become a respected multi-disciplinary, trans-Tasman practice.
An industrial designer by training, he successfully operates in multiple design disciplines having won awards in architecture, lighting, industrial and interior design. While his design accomplishments are significant, his ability to understand the needs and desires of clients, while bringing together a talented project team to translate them, makes the real difference.
His broader experience in property development, corporate real estate and facility planning means he can also offer a strategic viewpoint, often acting as a sounding board for clients in property assessment and acquisition.
Jonathan provides strategic direction and supervises the continuing generation of innovative design solutions at Custance. He became a fellow of the Designers’ Institute of New Zealand in 1990, being instrumental in its creation. In 2004 he was appointed to the Government Design Leadership Group. He sat on the Better by Design Board, part of New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, until early 2011.
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Business details
- Category:
- Architects
- Verified ArchiPro member since:
- 2015
- Associations:
- New Zealand Green Building Council









