When Joanne Kelly picked up sewing, she didn’t realise that one day it would connect her with her ancestry. “As an architect, I'm drawn to considering my client’s past as a way to make sense of their present situation to produce something from architecture that carries them forward into the future. I was inspired to contribute a panel to the exhibition called Suffrage in Stitches, at first because I wanted to try out a different medium - something that’s creatively challenging,” says Joanne. “And I ended up digging into my own family’s past in the process.” 

Joanne's father was a structural engineer in Rotorua. He often worked for local architects. Joanne was interested in architecture even when she was a child – she noticed buildings, and she’d remember details about how peoples’ homes looked from a very young age. Her mother's influence on sewing and knitting began then too. It wasn't until later at architecture school in Wellington that felt curiosity to weave a connection with the profession architecture.

Joining Pynenburg & Collins in 1998, she became the firm’s first female Director in 2016. It was her longtime colleague at Pynenburg & Collins, Karyn, who introduced her to the Suffrage in Stitches exhibition, which recreates the 1893 suffrage petition through patchwork panels. Joanne and Karyn both convinced their teenage daughters to join in too. All four women ended up discovering ancestors’ names on the original petition and featured their signatures on the panels. 

Joanne’s passion for human rights is a thread she’s woven through her work. Along the way she’s gathered extensive experience across a range of residential and commercial projects and not-for-profit work, including accessible design and aged-care facilities. 

“Spaces should be accessible, comfortable and beautiful at once. We shouldn’t have to choose,” says Joanne of her approach to the CCS Disability Action office fit-out. The team put accessibility into the heart of the building and its design, like contrasting floor surfaces and textured wallpaper to signal change from room to room, guiding those with hearing and vision impairments. “Aged care work is an opportunity - the usual approach to a build like that can be really institutional. I want to make it personal; to bring back independence,” she says.

At work, Joanne brings an insightful, warm and collaborative style. She oversees all stages of the building process, from master planning to initial design and project completion. And she relishes a good team design challenge.

“I love being on the building site, working with people,” she explains. “I want to create something special for them; environments to live in comfort, and do their best work. Every project is different: diversity is the commonality, and that’s what I like.” 

“Spaces should be accessible, comfortable and beautiful at once. We shouldn’t have to choose.”

Outside work, you can find her exploring coastal day walks, tackling a new creative challenge, or listening to music in her home’s bay window which they built as a family. Born in Rotorua, Joanne has lived in Wellington with her husband and two children and worked from the Te Aro office. Joanne has now relocated down south to work from the Christchurch branch.

While documenting this exhibition, the photographer and Joanne discovered they have a name on their family tree in common – Mary Ann Pragnell. Our world works in unexpected ways; connections made, past and present, and it all started with a stitch.

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