Ronald McDonald House

A very special place, this ‘home-away-from-home’ offers a much needed free place to stay for out-of-town families with a child needing medical treatment. The four-story building offers a sanctuary – a relaxing, calm place for families facing a difficult time. Inspiration came from an image of sunlight filtering through a canopy of leaves, and the feelings of contemplation and hope it evoked. That led to the choice of natural materials and colours, and guided us as we applied them in different ways throughout the building’s spaces.

From the client

LESLEY SLEIKER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE

“When construction of our new 34 bedroom Ronald McDonald House began in 2011 we selected Frances Fraser to lead our interior design team. At a very early stage of seeing Frances’ concepts we knew she fully understood our complex needs and desired results. We believed she was competent, and would be instrumental in bringing our blank canvas of empty space, walls and floors of our new House to life. The project was large and varied in our requirements and outcomes. One of the biggest challenges was delivering a high end product by securing products at discounted rates and having to incorporate donated product into the concepts to ensure everything was delivered under budget, without compromising on quality or visual dynamic. Another challenge Frances faced was certain areas not only had to meet the needs of the diverse range of end users, the products needed to be commercial but the overall effect had be like a home.

Certain areas were then complicated further when they had to reflect the individual donor or sponsor of the space, literally we had to merge commercial representation with homely décor. Frances worked diligently and passionately to ensure every box on our very long list was ticked for us. Our Trust now has a wonderful facility which meets our original design brief and our ongoing and future needs, our donors and sponsors are delighted to have space which they are very proud to have their name associated with.

All was achieved well under budget without concession. Thanks to Frances’ creative ability and talent, our families now have a place, which is not only light, bright and welcoming but is also visually inspiring and rejuvenates their spirit, giving them the energy to face the next day with their sick child. A place they are proud to call their home.”

DAVID MOULD, ASSOCIATE, ARCHAUS ARCHITECTS

“Frances approached the new Ronald McDonald House interior with a design ethos that was methodical, sophisticated and set a clear vision from the offset. Her design layouts, choice of materials, colours and furniture design were innovative, edgy and thoughtfully prepared. Her uncanny ability to collaborate with our client, design team members and suppliers with a minimum of instruction, manifested in a shared and enhanced vision, to what was an extremely challenging large scale project.”

LETITIA MONTFORD, TRUST BOARD MEMBER RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE WELLINGTON

” Frances listened to the significant brief for the project and began to interpret this into design schemes and ultimately reality for us. Frances was always a few steps ahead of us and always come to our meetings well prepared and ‘creative juices’ flowing. Frances has the ability to not only deliver professional concepts through to reality but work effectively in a team so that all our strengths could be capitalised on.

We thoroughly enjoyed working with Frances and that was a wonderful bonus. The new Ronald McDonald House was a challenging but hugely rewarding project of significance for hundreds of future families and Wellington as a city, we needed to get it right!

I would have no hesitation in recommending Frances Fraser for Interior Design work big or small – residential or commercial.”