Merle Greenwood

Alice Marion Merle Victoria Greenwood (1900 – 1990) was an Australian-born New Zealand architect. She was the first woman to graduate with a bachelor's degree in architecture from a New Zealand university, and the first woman to be employed as an architect in the New Zealand public service.

Biography Greenwood was born in Hobart, Australia, the daughter of an Anglican minister. The family lived in various locations around the Pacific and arrived in New Zealand in 1913, settling in Auckland. She attended a small private girls' school and received a scholarship for daughters of clergy, which enabled her to enrol at university. From 1927 to 1932, she studied architecture full-time at the University of Auckland. Her final year thesis design was for a group of buildings in an Italian style. The couple had no children. Greenwood's husband died in 1962 and she subsequently returned to New Zealand.