He then spent 16 months working for Dan Kiley on projects including the Independence Mall in Philadelphia, before returning to New Zealand in 1960.
[1] As an architect, Turbott is best known for the Becroft house (1962–64) in Takapuna, which he designed with Peter Middleton and won a New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) bronze award in 1966 and an NZIA 25-year award in 1994,[3] and the Arataki Visitor Centre, opened in 1994, in the Waitākere Ranges.
[4] Turbott was associated with environmentalists Bill Ballantine and Roger Grace, and was a pioneer in the establishment of national coastal and marine reserves in New Zealand.
[4] He was in the vanguard of New Zealand landscape architects, introducing the discipline into projects such as motorways, waterfronts, parks and residential developments,[1] including the Gisborne city and foreshore (1966),[5] the Christchurch motorway,[6] and the management plan for Maungawhau / Mount Eden Domain.
[1] In 1983–1984, he was a visiting professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania.