Architecture is a collaborative endeavour but it also needs leaders. Pip Cheshire was one of those leaders: someone I was fortunate enough to work with and call a friend on many projects over the past 30 years.

I first met Pip after he completed work on the Congreve House, a masterpiece that is assertive in its presence but also expresses a deep respect for the landscape of which it is part. Pip began working with my wife Sue and me on our home in Takapuna — a place he revisited, architecturally speaking, a couple of times over the years — and later designed adjacent houses for my mother and mother-in-law. We called on him again to work with us at The Landing, our property in the Bay of Islands. Pip’s skilful design of our winery there allows it to function successfully as a production facility for winemaker Ben Byrne and his team while also offering beautiful tasting rooms for visitors. Pip also designed our house at The Landing, where his expert blend of comfort, solidity and openness have made it the place in which I feel most completely at home.

Crafting a home for somebody is an intimate exercise at which Pip excelled but he was equally adept at applying this approach at an urban scale. Just over 20 years ago, Cooper and Company began the process of regenerating Britomart, which, at the time, was a ring of decrepit heritage buildings surrounding a gravel car park. Pip left Jasmax — the firm which had led the design, with Mario Madayag and Greg Boyden, of the Britomart Transport Centre and the master plan for the area above it — and established Cheshire Architects in Britomart’s Maritime Building, one floor below us. He and his team have remained intimately involved in the re-imagining of Britomart ever since, obsessing over everything from minor heritage details to the design of The Hotel Britomart.

Britomart isn’t so much a project about buildings but about creating a place. In the early days, this required countless hours of conversation about the possibilities Britomart offered and how we might go about achieving them. Pip had an intuitive understanding of what a successful blend of heritage buildings and new architecture could offer the city, as well as a keen sense of how well-designed public spaces could benefit Britomart as a whole. He had a restlessness that never allowed easy conclusions; he would ruminate on every detail and challenge every assumption. Sometimes, we’d fight like hell, but his approach had a rigour that meant we got the best out of every idea.

The relationship between architect and client can sometimes be transactional but that was never the casewith Pip and me. We had a shared passion for surfing and took memorable surfing trips with our sons to Fiji and Costa Rica; despite having only one full leg, Pip was as good as any normal surfer and set a high standard for us all in seeking out the biggest swells and locking into the inside curl. Our friendship became an ongoing conversation that spanned decades. It was built on a continuous exploration of new ideas and, in Britomart, our shared ambition to create a place that Aucklanders would feel proud of. I will miss him tremendously but I’m also grateful that his genius is embedded in so many of the places that surround me each day.