“After selecting our builder for our new home, we were recommended and presented with two architects. After initial discussions with both, we selected Kat from Activus as she ticked all our boxes, she balanced the architectural vision and the project realities beautifully, and she had a deep understanding of our priorities and operated responsively, promptly and professionally to all matters. The blend of her personal style and an understanding of ours resulted in a beautiful, practical and unique home.

Kat managed our project successfully and efficiently, but also with great success with regards to the design whilst also coming up with cleaver ideas for areas with limited space.

A real highlight of working with Kat was comparing our concept drawings to the finished product and how alike the two were, we had been told to expect this but experiencing this in reality was incredible.

Kat was an absolute pleasure to work with - professional, constructive, creative, solutions-oriented, hardworking and effective. We give her our highest recommendation and our full endorsement as an outstanding architect and architecture firm.”

Andrew & Liz Haigh

“We are delighted with the home Kat has created for us in Wanaka.  We started with a blank sheet and a wish list. Kat then offered us the perfect mix of creativity, practicality and great listening skills in designing our home.  From the first draft we were happy and found Kat flexible and inspirational in refining the details. Kat was an absolute pleasure to work with and we have no hesitation in recommending her to anyone thinking of building their own home.”

Richard Todd & Lynaire Ryan

“Kat Tibbs was recommended to us as professional, competent, innovative yet practical.  Sold! From first meeting Kat was so easy to work with. She designed our house to accommodate our wish list, maximize our section, encompass our life style, then added special features, and we're thrilled with the result.”

Don & Maryn Cameron

 “We have completed many architecturally designed homes with Activus over the last three years. We have found Kat to be very organized and thorough with great attention to detail. We appreciate working with Kat as the house plans are well resolved when we receive them. We also get feedback from the builders onsite that the plans are well detailed and they have less issues to resolve onsite. We look forward to completing more projects with Activus”

Carl Meyer, Meyer Cruden Engineering Ltd

“We used Kat from Activus Design to draw up plans for our new property at Timsfield Wanaka in January 2019.  We were thrilled with the service we received.  

Kat has a relaxed and friendly personality and we found her easy to communicate with. Kat fully understands the building process which is portrayed in her professional, accurate and easy to read plans complete with computer graphic images of the completed project.  

Her communication with us during the project was excellent and she delivered the plans in a very quick timeframe. Overall we received a professional and efficient service from her and we would definitely use her again for future work and recommend her to others. “

Josef Beston

“We gave Kat a design folder with all of the features we wanted in our new house, and had a discussion regarding the style we envisioned; she captured everything in the first concept plan.  This was no small feat as we are experienced house builders with strong opinions on look and style, plus our housing subdivision had a range of covenants and our section had some unique restrictions on features.   

As with any building programme, be it budget constraints or something else, various imposed restrictions will occur along the way.  Ours came in the form of developer and neighbour approval: Kat responded creatively to these changes without compromising our look, style and features.

Not living in Wanaka introduced its own challenges for us: it's easy to become anxious about progress and outcome from a distance.  Kat understood this and was very responsive and patient in all her communications with us. Plus it became clear to us that Kat is well connected and well respected in the local building sector: Our builders had a great deal of faith and trust in her, plus all the processes associated with consents etc went very smoothly.  So rather than being anxious from a distance, we were confident and relaxed. Thanks Kat.”

Deb & Chris Shield