About · Scott Mullinger · LBP Design Class

The person who'll actually design your building

I'm Scott Mullinger. I design homes, rural lodges and commercial buildings across New Zealand, and I've run Marsco Architecture out of Palmerston North since 2021. I'm a Licensed Building Practitioner with LBP Design Class, which means I can design your building and sign off that design work to the same scope as a registered architect for most residential and commercial projects.

The path here

I came to this the long way

A Bachelor's Degree and two Postgraduate Master's in five years of architecture study. I had to study for the five years anyway, so why not squeeze in more learning by doing an exchange from Auckland to Germany for my first year of postgraduate work. The result: a little more work, for learning and experience that will benefit me for a lifetime.

The following five years working under a registered architect was not a formal apprenticeship. It was where study and life experience were overlaid with real projects: where you learn how buildings actually get drawn, consented and built, rather than how they look in a render. Detailing that keeps water out. Drawings a builder can price and follow. What a council needs to grant consent without a fight.

Paper credentials matter. What shaped how I design was the years in practice and on site, combined with an extensive knowledge base from international travel, study, life experience, and hard labour across a few industries. Not the certificates on the wall.

Toward the end of that time I compiled a portfolio for NZRAB registration. A non-disclosure agreement meant I could not use that body of completed work to finish the registration process. Rather than spend years chasing accreditation for work I was already doing within LBP scope, I qualified as a Licensed Building Practitioner with Design Class instead.

Today, family time matters more to me than another credential on paper. My LBP Design Class covers the residential and commercial work I care about.

When a project genuinely needs registered architect credentials, I collaborate with selected registered architects on a project-by-project basis. That is no different from a franchise-style architect group working together, drawing on each other's past projects to win new jobs. Specialists collaborate to get the job done, and it is very common. I bring in the right people for those parts of the job, and we each stay focused on what we do best.

What I bring to a project

Skills that come from doing the work

I have worked on Importance Level 1, 2, 3, and 4 projects, including an MRI suite and fire stations. High-consequence environments where small mistakes have big consequences. That background taught attention to detail and compliance, while navigating politics.

Insulated panel design

A lot of my work is in insulated panel buildings. I work alongside two of New Zealand's largest panel installers, and I'm often brought in to sort out designs that don't account for how panels behave under our seismic loading, often drawings from firms used to Australian conditions, where the ground doesn't move the way ours does.

Buildability and sequencing matter as much as the structural theory. I fix designs that look fine on paper but cannot be built: panel junctions, services clashes and structural sequencing. Coordinating solutions with the CPEng engineer.

Seismic upgrades

For existing buildings, I integrate engineer-designed structural upgrade systems into what is already there: resolving clashes between old and new structure, make-good, and coordination, often alongside a reroof, code upgrade, or fitout.

All structural work is designed and signed off by a CPEng structural engineer. My role is to document how the upgrade fits the building as a whole, not to replace the engineer.

Hunting and fishing lodges

I'm a hunter and a fisherman, genuinely, not as a line on a website. When someone wants a lodge on a remote block, I understand the things you only learn by being out there: how you actually get materials to site, what a season of weather does to a building, how off-grid systems hold up, and the small decisions that make a place work when you're a long way from town.

A designer working from the city can get most of it right. The last part, the part that actually matters when you're using the place, comes from having lived it.

Alongside those, I do the bread-and-butter work well too: custom homes, extensions and renovations, and commercial and industrial buildings designed to the New Zealand Building Code. You can see the full range of design services or browse recent projects.

An honest distinction

Architect or Architectural Designer?

It's a fair question, and most people don't know the difference, so here it is plainly. In New Zealand, “Architect” is a title protected under the Architects Act 1963. You can only call yourself one if you're registered with the New Zealand Registered Architects Board. I'm not, and I'd never say otherwise.

What I hold is LBP Design Class: a licence that legally allows me to design buildings and sign off that design work for most residential and commercial projects. Same scope of work for the vast majority of homes, lodges and commercial buildings, just a different title. For most projects, that's exactly what you need, often without the overhead that comes with a larger practice.

And if your project ever does call for a registered architect, I'll tell you straight. That's the kind of advice you'd want anyway.

Credentials you can check

Don't take my word for it

My licence is on the public record. You can look me up on the Licensed Building Practitioners register and read exactly what LBP Design Class covers on building.govt.nzthe official source maintained by the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment.

Credential: Licensed Building Practitioner | Design Class
Licence number: BP140325
Based in: Palmerston North · working nationwide
Established: Marsco Architecture, 2021

How I think about design

Honest buildings, not loud ones

I've always thought nature is more beautiful than anything we put up next to it. So the buildings I'm proudest of aren't the ones that shout for attention. They're the ones that sit honestly on their site, serve the people inside them, and still look right in twenty years. I'm not chasing awards. I'm trying to design buildings that are good to live and work in, and straightforward to build.

If that sounds like the designer you want

Tell me a little about your site and what you want to build. There's no cost to start the conversation, and no jargon. Just a straightforward chat about whether we're the right fit.

Tell me about your project Call +64 2102686502