Oplius

Your home of colour Running hot, these spicy tones bring richness to interiors, warm the heart and start the appetite.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Pottle in Resene Half Pohutukawa; coaster in Resene Scoria; walnuts in Resene Roadster; napkin in Resene Raging Bull; spoon in Resene Salsa; background in Resene Jalapeno.

25TH ANNIVERSARY

OF T HE YE A R

Our winner: a dramatic yet humble bach on the Coromandel

by Ken Crosson Cheshire Architects design two awardwinners on Waiheke Spectacular coastal houses at Tutukaka and Mangawhai Two gables and an axe in a WÄ naka ďŹ eld by Pac Studio

Embracing architecture in

a new light

Light Mine joinery supplied by Alitech Window Systems

Join us as we celebrate Crosson Architects and their collaboration with architects, manufacturers and clients to bring this winning vision to life.

Altherm, proud sponsors of Home of the Year 2020.

Find out more at altherm.co.nz

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DuluxÂŽ are proud supporters of Home of the Year 2020.

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Contents

74

94

Home of the Year 74.

Light Mine A playful and dramatic design by Crosson Architects remains humble on the beach at Kuaotunu 94.

Resolved Encampment A permanent home in a beautiful collection of buildings on Waiheke

by Cheshire Architects 112.

112

128

Balancing Act By carefully orchestrating exposure and containment, Cheshire composes a spectacular retreat on Waiheke Island 128.

Crafted Detail Pac Studio designs a family crib that conjures remoteness, despite encroaching suburbia in WÄ naka 144.

From Memory Belinda George cuts a retreat from a perfect circle on a treasured piece of coastal land near Matapouri 160.

On Point John Irving places a dart due north where it settles into place in the Mangawhai topography

144

160

Contents

Design

Extras

28.

58.

34.

178.

Double Time A worker’s cottage in Wellington successfully navigates two eras in a renovation by LO’CA

52

Good Goods Fresh finds to adorn, inspire and admire in your home 35.

A Beautiful Thing Two New Zealand makers combine talents to create a beautifully crafted lamp 36.

Classic Hits A review of pieces past and present reveal the furniture world’s true keepers

42.

In Profile Cultural and private projects make up architect Jason Whiteley’s remit in London

44.

36

In Transit A test drive of a Tesla 3 will definitely give you something to torque about

46.

Architecture for Sale Classic and covetable homes come onto the market across New Zealand

52.

Destination From the Cultural Triangle to the capital and south coast, Sri Lanka is rich in Geoffrey Bawa treasures

58

Mirror Mirror A glazed box by José Bribiesca reflects its suburban surrounds and the architect himself My Favourite Building Home of the Year 2020 judge Jack McKinney eyes Melbourne’s RMIT Design Hub

SIMON JAMES

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Photography Jackie Meiring

It’s a cracker!

We bought a house! It seemed to take forever and we went to rather a lot of open homes. I spent many hours investigating the Auckland Unitary Plan and sketching on the back of real-estate brochures, because if I don’t do that I can’t commit to a house.

We made offers and we stood in auctions and always, just always, we seemed to be $50,000, $100,000, $150,000 behind. We would practice our doomsday scenario before we went: what’s the most this could go for? And then it would go for more. Much more – in one case, up in lots of $1000 for 30 painful minutes as two couples with young children desperately battled it out over a two-bedroom house with an illegal deck.

Finally, one Sunday, we went to see an old villa across the road from the house with the illegal deck. It smelled like feet; there was a broken barbecue in the back yard. The floor was on a lean, and there was a bow in the ceiling. We stood in the back yard – you can see the Sky Tower! – and my wife said: this one.

I took an architect friend around a few days later. He laughed when he saw the floor and admired the bow in the ceiling. He, too, stood in the back yard and stared at the lean-to.

“That’s munted,” he said, and he laughed again. “It’s a cracker!”

Two weeks later, we turned up to the auction.

It was the morning after the government introduced stringent travel controls and the panic began – the bidding was hesitant, slow.

Was it the house? Or the virus? Regardless, 45 excruciating minutes and two back-room negotiations later, it was ours – for far less than we thought it would go for.

Are we mad? Buying a house as a global pandemic bears down on the country? Probably.

But we need somewhere to live. Now we just need to move, and start thinking about what goes where… And start dreaming about the one thing we said we’d never do again – renovate from the ground up. Oh well.

— Simon Farrell-Green

FIND US ONLINE

homemagazine.co.nz @homenewzealand facebook.com/homenewzealand

Real estate aside, this issue is dedicated to our annual Home of the Year award – our 25th, brought to you by our friends at Altherm Window Systems. We hope you enjoy the six incredible finalists: for the first time in recent years, they’re all retreats, on some pretty spectacular sites.

Our winner is terrific: ‘Light Mine’ by Ken Crosson reaches for the sun through tall towers inspired by mines in the area, with a casual feel around a sheltered courtyard.

Our runner-up is an encampment by Cheshire Architects on Waiheke around a central courtyard where the weather and site are ever-present. Winning the Best Retreat award is another Cheshire project, a monumental house built of stone and glass at Cowes Bay. Taking out Best Colour & Detail, thanks to Dulux, is a house in Wānaka by Pac Studio.

Congratulations to all the winners.

Contributors

Jackie Meiring

Maggie Hubert

The photographer travelled to Waiheke to capture a loose encampment by Cheshire Architects for a couple who challenged orthodox luxuries, as well as the architects, in creating their unique home (p. 94).

The artist is currently studying architecture and co-authored the feature on José Bribiesca (p. 58).

The piece explores the architect’s mysterious mirror-glass home, and the man behind the mystery.

The materials chosen by Cheshire Architects for the ‘Awaawaroa’ house seem simultaneously elegant and rugged. What elements stand out when seeing the house in person? On first sight, the dwellings are both visually intriguing and beautiful. The canvas skin on the sleeping pods seems alive as it catches the light, a lovely juxtaposition to the crisp timber cathedral-like living structure. Their uniqueness comes from both the unusual material use and the way they relate to each other, and the landscape in which they lie. They also engage the viewer in storytelling... they evoke a feeling and narrative that’s not necessarily from here.

You knew José Bribiesca personally, which of his qualities are reflected in his home? It’s hard to separate José from the house and the house from José. In many ways, the house is an extension of who he was – an eccentric, brave and ambitious injection into the suburbs. Like the house, he was a truly special human. Sofie [José’s daughter] recently found a note José wrote himself: ‘If you want to be successful in life, you have to do something great because where you’re from is a small place and it’s not easy to get the world’s attention’. This handwritten note sort of sums him up. His house was stocked floor to ceiling with books, treasures and beautiful things he had collected from all over the world, and he was always telling stories. That surprise and delight of an artist was everywhere in his home.

Does your native South Africa have a tradition of holiday homes similar to the New Zealand bach? For those who could afford it, the South African holiday home was often ‘a grand affair’, mostly made of bricks and mortar and on a scale that asserts itself on the coastal landscape. More recently, the quaint old whitewashed fisherman’s cottages of the west coast, or African-style huts known as rondavels, have also have become popular as holiday dwellings.

You and Giles Reid, who co-authored the feature in this issue on José Bribiesca (p. 58), worked together on a book, Counter Constructions, about architect Claude Megson. Are you working on any other book collaborations? I really enjoyed that experience – focusing solely on one man’s work was fascinating. I have been working on a new idea with an art expert, but we are yet to find a publisher.

What architecture have you seen recently that you thought was underrated, or deserved to be featured in architectural publications? I am really enjoying the focus on small houses, and their bespoke solutions to site challenges. I would like to see more on small-scale apartments and townhouse developments that address both carbon footprint and offer fresh creative design solutions.

The ‘Bribiesca’ house is currently worse for wear.

Do you think Bribiesca had a different approach to architecture’s longevity? José was an artist who charged forward with big ambitions. He was always onto the next creative venture before the last was complete. His spirit was perhaps more aligned with artistic exploration than financial reward. Funds were always tight and the house was an ambitious undertaking. It was built in 1986 and the roof was never properly finished. That being said, it possesses an unexpected robustness and feeling of permanence. José was involved in a number of fantastic pursuits in and outside of architecture.

One favourite was an edgy, other-worldly vision for the Auckland waterfront – a grand, Utopian dream that, unfortunately, never came to fruition.

As an artist studying architecture, where do you see your path going? My sculpture and painting practice has focused on the influence of space, and reinterpreting our spatial environment as alive and as one of giving and taking. I’m fascinated by the physical space, light and materiality that surround us, and want to be a part of shaping the built environment.

This previous investment has been beneficial and I’ve found the progression into architecture, although certainly challenging, somewhat natural. I’m enjoying the theory and experimentation that’s possible in academia. I see myself working in practice exploring dynamic spatial relationships and materiality.

I feel inspired by architectures that exists in a realm somewhere between architecture and sculpture.

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DAW S O N & C O .

25TH ANNIVERSARY

O F THE YEA R

Editor Simon Farrell-Green Deputy Editor Jo Bates Art Director Arch MacDonnell Inhouse Design

Our winner: a dramatic yet humble bach on the Coromandel

by Ken Crosson Cheshire Architects design two awardwinners on Waiheke Spectacular coastal houses at Tutukaka and Mangawhai Two gables and an axe in a Wānaka field by Pac Studio

On the cover Rebecca Wadey watches on as Toby and Vincent Timpson make their way to the beach. The Home of the Year 2020 by Crosson Architects was photographed by David Straight.

Art direction by Arch MacDonnell and Alex Turner.

Below ‘Mirror Mirror’ (p. 58), photographed by David Straight, portrays a house by José Bribiesca and dives into the architect’s life.

Senior Designer/Stylist Sara Black Designer Alex Turner Inhouse Design Digital Editor Lakshmi Krishnasamy Digital Producers Katie Delaney Olivia Day Video Editor Lana Byrne Editorial Office Bauer Media Group Shed 12, City Works Depot 90 Wellesley Street Auckland, New Zealand homenewzealand @bauermedia.co.nz +64 9 308 2700

Contributors Susanne Baldwin Jenny Farrell Sarah Gladwell Maggie Hubert Claire McCall Michael Moore-Jones Matt Philp Giles Reid Jiho Yun Photographers Simon Devitt Sam Hartnett Jackie Meiring Maris Mezulis Toaki Okano David Straight Simon Wilson Neeve Woodward Postal address HOME New Zealand Bauer Media Group Private Bag 92512 Wellesley Street Auckland 1141 New Zealand

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ABC average net circulation, April 17 – March 18: 12,026 copies. ISSN 1178-4148.

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THINK

AHEAD

Auckland | Wellington | Christchurch

Photography David Straight

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H O M E M AG A Z I N E.C O.N Z @HOMENEWZEALAND FAC E B O O K .C O M / H O M E N E W Z E A L A N D H O M E M AG A Z I N E.C O.N Z/S I G N U P

Products — 34 Enduring Design — 36 In Profile — 42 In Transit — 44 Architecture for Sale — 46 Destination — 52

R ES E N E OX YG E N

Design

Project — 28

D:01 PROJECT

New Kid

LO’CA gives a couple space to entertain in a 4.5-metre 1870s cottage in Thorndon, Wellington.

fiona barr, owner

Our house is one in a row of three identical cottages; it’s in a great location but was small for our needs.

We wanted a modern renovation that would respect the history of the building.

The existing kitchen-dining area could only seat four and we love food and entertaining, so wanted an area to have our friends over for meals. We also needed storage and hoped we could include some built-in seating and a WC. LO’CA [Lovell O’Connell Architects] were recommended to us by a local architect and we shared their fondness for mid-century architecture. They provided us with two exciting options, which highlighted the need for an architect even for a small square box.

ana o’connell, lo’ca The alteration of this heritage-listed villa called for opening up to the sun and garden with a living, dining and kitchen extension. Alongside this, the brief included much-needed remedial work and a thermal upgrade. Our design response was to restore and upgrade in keeping with the original character, while adding a modern single-storey suncatcher to the back of the house. From a heritage viewpoint, it was important to provide the desired inside-outside relationship without affecting the original character of the Italianate villa.

Opposite— The renovation has resulted in a villa with mid-century leanings.

LO’CA designed the inbuilt cabinetry and seat, which extend beyond the kitchen.

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H O M E N E W ZE AL AN D

Above— As well as an easy connection to the garden, full-height sliding doors provide a picture window to this pretty pocket of nature.

Right— The house now has a foot in both worlds, where original native-timber floorboards meet clearfinished concrete in the extension. Skylights open the single-storey extension to the light. The painting of Thorndon is by Lucy Tyndall.

H O M E N E W ZE AL AN D

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H O M E N E W ZE AL AN D

The extension opens up the dark, internally focussed villa and reinterprets the timber craftsmanship and vertical volumes of the villa in a modern way. The extension contributes space for the new kitchen, as well as an additional dining area. It is sympathetic in form and scale, harking back to the original lean-to that clipped onto the back of the villa. Skylights and oversized sliding doors improve natural daylight and sun penetration.

The exposed concrete floor functions as a passive solar heat sink. The courtyard provides outdoor seating and borrowed volume that encourages expansiveness in the interior spaces.

Opposite— A Louis Poulsen ‘PH5’ pendant hangs above the table

by Feelgood Designs, with chairs by Stellar Works. The ‘Stay Table’ side table is by Normann Copenhagen.

Left— The villa is one in a row of three identical cottages.

Below— Thermally broken aluminium joinery has been fitted throughout the extension. No easy feat in a villa that comes with all its original charm, including leaning walls and sloping floors.

tim lovell, lo’ca

The street elevation had some historical damage and rot, which triggered the replacement of weatherboards and windows.

The restoration remains faithful, with careful detailing work replicating the curved timber keystone sash window head and sunroom windows. All the existing windows have been replaced with double-glazed sealed units, and insulation installed throughout.

We love the generosity of volume and light that the extension provides, alongside the subtle textures and materiality of the interior. With a foot in both worlds, we kept the design of the extension quite pared back, while picking up on the traditional villa use of decorative timber and texture.

Vertical weatherboards in the extension pick up on the villa weatherboard texture but are vertical and painted dark grey.

The clear-finished concrete contrasts with the villa’s matai floor. The kitchen joinery straddles the villa and extension and is painted to match the wall, aiming to make the space feel bigger than the 4.5m width of the room. The below-bench timber veneer joinery picks up the grain and tone of the timber floor. ana o’connell

The talented builder Chris Swift did a great job working around the challenges created by the villa’s leaning walls and sloping floors. There’s a new window that needed to slope vertically to align with the existing leaning wall.

Surprises are always unearthed with every alteration – it’s interesting to see the layered history underneath the linings.

It’s unexpected to walk into the compressed villa entry, then turn into the kitchen where sky and garden views draw you through. The contrast between the narrow exterior street frontage and the interior really does feel like a Tardis.

Photography David Straight

H O M E N E W ZE AL AN D

31

Top— Dexter sits on a 1950s leather swivel chair. The painting above is ‘Swing’ by Nigel Mason.

The cast-glass aeroplane is by Michelle Bryant.

Left— The 1950s print of Sacre Coeur is by Arno.

Below— In their brief, the owners requested the addition of a WC, which is now located behind panelling. The wallpaper is ‘Animalia Extinct’

by Emma J Shipley for Clarke & Clarke.

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FURNITURE & HOMEWARES | INTERIOR DESIGN WWW.COCOREPUBLIC.CO.NZ

D:03 A BEAUTIFUL THING

By Hand

Two local makers achieve just the right balance in a beautifully crafted, limited-edition lamp.

1

D:02 WARES

New to Market

2

Fresh finds from near and far to adorn, inspire and admire.

1— ‘IO’ coffee table by Tolv, from $1069 from Dawson & Co, dawsonand.co.nz.

2— ‘Aer’ vase by Gabriel Tan for Menu, from $498 from Simon James, simonjames.co.nz.

3— ‘Roman’ pool towel

by Baina, $100 from Baina, shopbaina.com.

4— ‘Onishi’ vase by Kerryn Levy, $350 from Seagar Design, seagardesign.com.

3

5— ‘Pebble’ paperweights

by Dong-Wan Kim for Clear Mood, $75 each from Jiho Yun, jiho-yun.com.

Artisan glass blowers Monmouth have made a name in recent years for light fixtures that combine art and craft into designs that feel hand made but still refined. Meanwhile, Petley is owned

by Courtney Petley, who hand-turns everyday objects from reclaimed native New Zealand timber.

Together, they have made the ‘Balanced’ lamp, a beautiful limited-edition design.

It features a cylindrical base made from totara sourced from a demolished railway shed in Morrinsville, turned and honed, then finished with tung oil and beeswax.

The light is a frosted globe, hand-blown

by Monmouth’s Stephen Bradbourne and Isaac Katzoff in their studio in Henderson, Auckland. The globe sits lightly on top of the cylinder, offset to one side – as if it had just been placed there casually. The result is elegant and contemporary, a warm and timeless design.

“Taking on a collaboration like this provides the opportunity to really hone our skills and make us better at what we do,” says Bradbourne. “It also allows us to work with talented people.”

‘Balanced’ lamp, $3200, is available from Monmouth Glass Studio in Auckland.

Monmouth Glass Studio 5 Great North Road, Grey Lynn, Auckland monmouthglassstudio.com

6— ‘Fromage’ ottoman by Tolv, from $989 from Dawson & Co, dawsonand.co.nz.

Edited by Sara Black

4

5

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6

Photography Neeve Woodward H O M E N E W ZE AL AN D

35

D:04 CLASSICS

Testing Time

Past and present classics are enduring and sustainable – they are keepers.

Styling Sara Black Assistant Jiho Yun Photography Toaki Okano

This page, clockwise from forefront— 1960s ‘Model 71’ dining chair by Niels O Møller, $6000 for six from The Vintage Shop, thevintageshop.co.nz; Danish teak mirror, $950 from The Vintage Shop, thevintageshop.co.nz; ‘Eames Walnut’ stool by Charles and Ray Eames for Herman Miller, $2140 from Karakter, karakter.co.nz; ‘Karlebo’ pendant by Hans Hartvig Skaarup and Marinus Jespersen for Fog & Mørup, $750 from The Vintage Shop, thevintageshop. co.nz; 1900s hollow trunk, $550 from Vitrine, vitrine. co.nz; 1940s Italian ‘Palm Leaf’ corbel, $2400 for a pair from Mid Century Swag, midcenturyswag.co.nz.

Opposite page, from left— 1930s ‘Model 403’ chair by Alvar Aalto for Finmar, $2750 from Mr Bigglesworthy, mrbigglesworthy.co.nz; vintage Finnish vase by Tamara Aladin, $155 from Karakter, karakter.co.nz; 1990s ‘Peanut’ stools by Stephane Rondel, $1400 for a pair from Mr Bigglesworthy, mrbigglesworthy.co.nz; ‘RM58’ soft chair by Roman Modzelewski for Vzór, $1630 from Karakter, karakter.co.nz.

This page, clockwise from left—1970s ‘S’ chair by Marzio Cecchi, $2000 from Babelogue, babelogue.shop; with ‘Originals All Purpose’ chair by Lucian Ercolani for Ercol, $945 from Good Form, goodform.co.nz; and with jug by Temuka, $85 from Babelogue, babelogue.shop; ‘Nelson Cigar Lotus’ table lamp by George Nelson for Herman Miller, $1470 from Karakter, karakter.co.nz.

Opposite page, clockwise from left— ‘Golfo Dei Poeti’ lounge chair by Jacques Toussaint & Patrizia Angeloni for Matteograssi, $1650 from Babelogue, babelogue. shop; with ‘Discerning Individualist’ vase, $195 from My Exhibition, myexhibition. co.nz; fold-up side table, $95 from My Exhibition, myexhibition.co.nz; with oval china dish, $20 from My Exhibition, myexhibition. co.nz; ‘Head of David’ bust, $650 from My Exhibition, myexhibition.co.nz.

This page, clockwise from forefront— 1970s lucite dining chair by Charles Hollis Jones for Hill Manufacturing, $2400 for four from Mr Bigglesworthy, mrbigglesworthy.co.nz; ‘Rex’ rocking chair by Niko Kralj for Rex Kralj, $775 from Good Form, goodform.co.nz; dining chair by Baumann, $395 from Vitrine, vitrine. co.nz; on tea chest, $65 from My Exhibition, myexhibition. co.nz; 1988 ‘Peacock’ wall sculpture by Curtis Jere for Artisan House, $3250 from Mr Bigglesworthy, mrbigglesworthy.co.nz.

Opposite page, from left— ‘Gesture’ chair by Hans Olsen for Warm Nordic, $905 from Good Form, goodform. co.nz; with Murano lamp by Archimede Seguso, $2250 for a pair from Mid Century Swag, midcenturyswag. co.nz; ‘Nelson Ball Bubble’ pendant by George Nelson for Herman Miller, from $1090 from Karakter, karakter.co.nz; ‘NYC’ side tables by Leon Rosen for Pace Collection, $1900 for a pair from Mid Century Swag, midcenturyswag. co.nz; 1976 ‘401 Break’ armchair by Mario Bellini for Cassina, $1250 from Mr Bigglesworthy, mrbigglesworthy.co.nz.

With thanks to St Columba Church, stcolumba.org.nz and Catstopher the cat.

D:05 IN PROFILE

Jason Whiteley

At Matheson Whiteley, the Londonbased New Zealander works on cultural and private projects.

Tell us what you do and why you do it.

Hamish Boyd of Jasmax once said to me that architecture was making “practical, good-looking buildings”. I was probably a bit dismissive of his definition at the time – it seemed so obvious. But now I think it’s quite close to the truth. It requires great capacity to make a building, which is obvious. Most buildings are just nothing.

They exist as the sum of their parts and nothing more. But then you see a good building by someone like Peter Beaven or Nigel Cook and it is transformational.

You studied maths and physics at Canterbury, then switched to architecture at Victoria University and qualified in 2005. What happened next? Afterwards, I worked for John Melhuish and Max Herriot. They were very generous and their architecture

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Above— Alexander McQueen showroom.

Left— Matheson Whiteley added a workshop and bedroom to this semidetached Victorian townhouse in East London.

Below— Jason Whiteley.

has a rare assuredness. After that, I went to Auckland for a couple of years and worked with Penny Hay on private residential projects and then to London.

A few days after arriving in London, I was walking along Old Street and saw a photograph of the Leyman House (an iconic Herzog & de Meuron project) in a shop window. Out of curiosity I walked in and it was Herzog & de Meuron’s London site office. I left a CV and a couple of months later was living in Basel.

You worked with Herzog & de Meuron on international residential and cultural projects. Is that where you met your practice partner Donald Matheson? Donald had been working as a project architect based in London on the Tate Modern extension. Every year Herzog & de Meuron has a summer party where staff from around the world are brought together in Basel. I think we met at 3am listening to bad German techno.

Matheson Whiteley has designed art galleries, artists’ studios, a showroom for the house of Alexander McQueen, public spaces and private homes. What are currently working on? Right now our key project is the redevelopment of Studio Voltaire, a public art gallery in South London. We’ve completed a number of projects which open up and reconfigure existing art institutions for new audiences, most recently the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, a public art gallery in Germany. We’re also starting the next phase of work transforming an electronics factory in Suffolk into studios for artist Ryan Gander, and making a new workshop building for the designer Max Lamb.

Tell us about running a practice in London. Is it a collegial environment or is the city just too big for that to happen?

London is a financial city and that makes it difficult for architecture, because many of architecture’s best qualities resist commodification. The environment is quite contractual and aggressive. But I think we’ve become more and more interested in this London way of making buildings, because if you can justify something commercially then – in a way – you have freedom in the atmosphere or quality you are trying to achieve. At the same time we are very lucky because London seems able to support the kind of work we are trying to make.

Has Brexit impacted the industry at all?

We’ve had a number of talented Europeans return home because they somehow did not feel so welcome anymore. With immigration, human stories are always heart breaking.

Tell us about your work for Resident.

The first project I designed after Herzog & de Meuron was a chair and two lights.

I put on a little exhibition in my apartment in Basel during the week of the art fair when everyone is in town. About six months later, Simon James from Resident saw the pictures and got in touch to see if we could do a project together.

Resident has a great vision and depth of technical knowledge. Seeing the chair come together was an important early encouragement to keep going. I’m sure we will work together again in the future.

Matheson Whiteley mathesonwhiteley.com

Photography Maris Mezulis

Tell us about your background. I grew up in the western suburbs of Christchurch.

When I was two my parents designed and built a four-bedroom house and have lived there ever since. My father ran a manufacturing company that originally did heavy contract engineering, then switched to exporting marine propulsion systems.

The company had a big industrial site near the Addington Raceway, a triangle of land bisected by the railway line that runs from the wharves of Lyttleton out West to Rolleston and then South to Timaru. My brother and I would play there on Saturdays while my father worked.

There was a big shed with a steam train in it and glider parts lying around – it was that kind of place.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but driving from our house to the factory you could sense the recent history of New Zealand in reverse: the expanding western suburbs fed by the new motorways, a flyover spanning the new waste centre, the local meat works sprouting refrigerant pipe, newly completed public swimming pools, views towards the Edwardian architecture of Sunnyside Hospital, the immense, recently shuttered workshops of the Ministry of Works, and finally a collection of yellowing saw-tooth factories. It wasn’t beautiful but it gave me a sense that a city should be a working place that supports a breadth of activities.

My mother is Chinese and moved to New Zealand from Malaysia as a teenager to study engineering. She home schooled me and my siblings, which was a vast effort. Both my parents are independently minded and I think Christchurch was a good place for that.

D:06 IN TRANSIT

Full Voltage

We take a Tesla Model 3 on a road trip to the Coromandel to visit our Home of the Year 2020.

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screen is impossible, if not dangerous, to use while driving. We found the voice-activated controls, which would otherwise get around this, glitchy.

The proof is in the driving, though.

There’s a delight to most electric cars – the sheer torque of even the most basic model is a noticeable step up on their petrol cousins – but the delight to this one is something else again. The car’s centre of gravity is low; it corners beautifully and has extraordinary acceleration. It also has regenerative braking, which means the car brakes automatically when you take your foot off the accelerator, slowing the car into corners and charging the battery at the same time – though with 520km of range, we were more than capable of making our destination. tesla.com

The Tesla Model 3 has a low centre of gravity, outstanding acceleration and corners beautifully.

Text Simon Farrell-Green Photography Simon Wilson

Before the iPhone, we all just had phones, right? And before the Tesla, you just had an electric car. In designing a new car from the ground up, Tesla has rethought everything. There is no key to the Tesla: you run it through an app. It can self-drive, and its navigation system tells you how much battery you’ll have when you arrive at your destination.

The HOME team took a Model 3 to a shoot at our winning Home of the Year in Kuaotunu by Crosson Architects, and we can report that the drive was spectacular.

The car we borrowed was a ‘performance model’ (with a terrifying all-white leather interior), which meant it is capable of going very fast indeed, and handled beautifully on the winding roads of the Coromandel.

On the outside, it’s cute – with a sunroof instead of a roof. On the inside, there are no dials: everything goes through a central screen. If we have a quibble, it’s that the

D:07 HOME + PETER FELL

Modern Magic A mid-century home receives a much-needed rework.

In Auckland’s St Heliers, this renovation project by Rogan Nash Architects involved the demolition of a “disastrous 90s extension” appended to a 60s-style home.

Kate Rogan and Eva Nash were tasked with “creating a wonderful home for entertaining that suits modern family life”, out of the rubble of the old extension.

And they’ve made it appear effortless.

Now a generous four-bedroom home with a pool, you get the feeling that the architects were determined to create an extension that would age well – the opposite, then, to the one that formerly stood. “It is essentially a pavilion,” says Nash of the new addition, which has a medium-grey concrete floor from Peter Fell’s extensive range of colours. “We wanted the living areas to be light, airy and inviting and to have a good sense of flow to the outside.” Connecting graciously to the lawn and pool area, there is plenty of glazing and careful landscaping.

The architects have used thoughtful gestures to ensure the two parts of the house – the old and the new – feel harmonious and connected. As you move between spaces and down a short flight of stairs, for instance, cedar has been used for the ceiling. This creates a subtle but careful nod to what is now the heart of the house: a mid-century inspired kitchen area with a walnut screen and four-metre island bench, also in walnut.

That this kitchen is the heart of the home becomes doubly true with the coloured concrete floor, using product made in New Zealand by Peter Fell. By collecting heat during the day, it keeps the pavilion warm in the evenings. This serves to lower power bills, in addition to looking great. The concrete floor is also emphatically practical. It’s a breeze to keep clean, and the owners don’t need to worry about water from the nearby pool being traipsed through the house.

“The clients delight in mid-centurymodern design and we were keen to incorporate elements of this aesthetic throughout the house,” say the architects.

But far from simply recreating mid-century style in the 2020s, the house manages to

feel effortlessly contemporary with flashes of its 60s inspiration.

Critical to this is the concrete floor throughout the pavilion, rather than the traditional wood you might expect.

A ground-concrete solution, the floor accentuates the walnut and white paint to create a harmonious whole. In certain lights, glimpses of a reflection of the beautiful walnut screen can be seen in the concrete, creating a sense of depth.

Rogan Nash has created a great-looking house that retains all its practicality. And it’s that practicality that will keep it looking fresh and relevant in the decades to come.

Peter Fell peterfell.co.nz

Top and above— The medium-grey floor, using a colour by Peter Fell, is hard-wearing and practical – and sits harmoniously with walnut cabinetry and mid-century furniture.

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Left— Architect Maarten Hofmans has designed two crafted townhouses that are a compliment to the landscape.

Photography Simon Devitt

Below— A 1940s state house moves on from its humble origins to become a contemporary family home.

D:08 ARCHITECTURE FOR SALE

By Design

Homes designed by some of the country’s finest architects go to market.

Arrowtown House 63 McDonnell Road, Arrowtown Architect Maarten Hofmans is known for his houses around Arrowtown that combine a crisp, contemporary feel with warm, natural materials, including cleverly placed timber.

Hofmans’ own home in Arrowtown featured in the February/March 2019 issue of HOME. Around the same time, he designed two houses beside each other intended for holiday rental; though they’d function easily as full-time dwellings.

The houses back onto a spectacular rock wall, which inspired the faceted wall at the front: a line runs through the entire façade, a fold that reaches from one side of the house to the other.

There are three bedrooms and two bathrooms across 168 square metres: special touches include a custom oak kitchen and mezzanines for contemplation and retreat. Outside, two decks run off the dining area and family room on either side of the house, while views over farmland stretch to mountains in the distance.

The houses are crisp in their sensibility and approach, a welcome contrast to Central Otago gables and schist. luxuryrealestate.co.nz/q007

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Pt Chev House 49 Moa Road, Point Chevalier, Auckland All too often, former state houses have not been afforded the clever thinking given to neighbouring villas and bungalows, which have received contemporary but sympathetic extensions.

This design, by Evelyn McNamara in Auckland’s Point Chevalier, is something of a masterclass in how to create something different, yet sympathetic, and in doing so, a new way of living. McNamara has added a square black box – flat roofed to the original terracotta hip roof, with vertical shiplap cladding contrasting with the original weatherboards.

The addition contains an open-plan living area, one step down from the original

house. The home has four bedrooms, including main bedroom with walk-in wardrobe and en suite bathroom, an additional bathroom, dining area, kitchen and a second living room. From the box, it’s a few steps down to a flat lawn and a swimming pool.

Interior finishes are simple and sympathetic to the original 1940s home, including timber floors, plywood cabinetry and a kitchen with stainless-steel bench.

Clever touches include a wall clad in dark-stained timber with a clerestory window around the second living area, and a built-in desk at one end of the kitchen. Subtle and very well done. uprealestate.co.nz/UPH11609

City Living Redefined Aro is a master-planned, premium low-rise residential development which is set to redefine city living in Wellington. Located in the heart of Te Aro, circled by Victoria, Willis and Vivian Streets–meticulous planning ensures a living experience that’s unlike any other found in Wellington’s inner city.

Aro buildings balance design excellence with fine aesthetics to create a special place to come home to. Comprising of 61 architectural terraces these three and four-storeyed structures showcase the very best in intelligent design, high quality construction and beautifully appointed and considered interiors.

Register your interest at aroliving.co.nz or contact one of the listing agents to book your show-suite appointment to understand the plans in more detail.

Jason Lange 027 486 2590 jason@tommys.co.nz

Bill Mathieson 021 755 306 bill.mathieson@tommys.co.nz

Billy Bell 021 242 9281 billy.bell@tommys.co.nz

Apartmento Apartmento is comprised as three separate apartment blocks located on Willis, Victoria and the soon to be created Aro laneway, all connected by a common glazed roof open air atrium designed to provide a seamless interface and emulate the laneway living that underpins the Aro development.

The interiors of the apartments have been carefully planned to provide generous living spaces, a master bedroom, an architectural kitchen and full bathroom. The exterior elements are characterised by the extensive use large format window joinery and skylights for the upper levels combined with open air decks.

aroliving.co.nz

Dickson House 6 Bermer Road, Belmont, Lower Hutt, Wellington The late Sir Ian Athfield took a keen interest in the design and construction of the ‘Dickson’ house, built for a Wellington couple in 1974.

Not surprisingly, it carries many of his signature touches from the time, and bears a slight resemblance to his own compound at Karori. Built against the slope over several levels, it has the feel of a small village rather than one house, with a domed peak, tall twin chimneys and pitched roofs over individual rooms. It’s all clad in white concrete, uninterrupted by something as prosaic as a downpipe or gutter.

Internally, the house spills down the slope through a series of rooms with frequent changes in ceiling height and volume, from low to vaulted. Dark timber beams and sarked ceilings are a marked contrast to the creamy white exterior, yet the space is filled with light thanks to generous French doors and windows: almost every room connects to some form of outdoor space.

The house has been owned by the original owners for nearly five decades, and their commitment is clear: it is meticulously kept, as well as beautifully designed. The kitchen has been updated, though bathrooms are largely original and many rooms still feature original terracotta floor tiles. One room still has outrageous orange carpet, which may not be to everyone’s taste, but offers a nod to the future direction this design classic could take in confident hands. bayleys.co.nz/3280680

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Above, left— The home

by Sir Ian Athfield in Lower Hutt clearly carries his signature moves and touches.

Above— This 1960s Banks Peninsula home

by Warren & Mahoney is for sale for the first time in 30 years.

Left— Malcolm Walker designed this substantial home in 2011 in Mahurangi East.

Mahurangi House 119 Ridge Road, Mahurangi East Malcolm Walker completed the design for this substantial Mahurangi East home in 2011, to a brief that requested it work for generations to come. The resulting house is built from tilt-slab concrete, but lacks any of the material’s monolithic, industrial connotations.

Walker’s design features a complex and elegant series of roofs that play out over various rooms and parts of the house, including a sort of widow’s walk on the top floor. This significant home has details that will be familiar to those who follow Walker’s work: clerestory windows and timber sarked ceilings, generous window seats, clearly defined (though connected) zones, and covered outdoor living areas with lovely views.

Designed to be lived in on one level, the ground floor holds the main bedroom, plus second bedroom and two bathrooms, while a guest wing with two bedrooms and a bathroom are upstairs.

The 4000-square-metre site and riparian access add to the appeal.

Warren & Mahoney Banks Peninsula House, 417 Marine Drive, Charteris Bay, Canterbury A 1960s classic by Warren & Mahoney with riparian access at Charteris Bay is for sale for the first time in 30 years.

The house is arranged over two levels in two wings in an ‘L’ around a central motor court. The main living areas and a main bedroom are upstairs, running out to a sheltered verandah with views over the bay; further living areas are downstairs with a stone-flagged floor.

The house has a clearly expressed, rational language with timber beams that extend out to support the verandah and a combination of pale brick – rather than the Christchurch Style’s familiar concrete block – and painted cedar weatherboards.

Deliberate openings are mirrored between levels, especially on the rear façade, with a mix of French doors and signature square windows.

In the hands of the same owners since 1988, it has been well kept, but presents a unique opportunity for restoration by its new owners.

bayleys.co.nz/1221772

holmwood.co.nz/christchurch-realestate/910785/

155 The Strand, Parnell, Auckland

Paini Duravit Valsir Kaldewei Inda Dornbracht Marblo Almar Vola

Toilets. Basins. Baths.

Tapware. Accessories.

Saunas. Showers.

metrix.co.nz

Start the day with fresh tropical fruit and dishes prepared with produce from the organic garden on Nukubati Private Island.

Unwind with a traditional Fijian massage on Dolphin Island. Practitioners use techniques handed down through generations to enhance deep relaxation and restore harmony.

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Sit down to a meal

by The Wakaya Club & Spa’s award-winning executive chef Marielle Hajj, who combines her Lebanese heritage and Mexican roots to prepare exquisite meals in her tropical kitchen.

Enjoy a traditional Fijian meke; an evening of traditional storytelling, song and dance.

Photography Benjamin Townsend; Danielle Harte; Mark Lane

FIJI MOMENTS

D:09 HOME + TOURISM FIJI

A Fiji Moment All you have to do is arrive.

Fiji’s private island resorts beautifully bridge nature and luxury. By upholding sustainability while providing refinement, they create sanctuaries to rest, restore, reconnect and revive.

Each exclusive island retreat has its own unique offering, while all proudly foster Fijian heritage and hospitality.

With a maximum number of eight guests, luxury at Dolphin Island is defined by seclusion and exclusivity. The ultimate experience in high-end privacy, this all-inclusive retreat is yours for the duration of your stay. Dolphin Island’s experiences cater to travellers seeking daily adventures, such as diving and kayaking, through to those restoring their wellbeing. Nature’s beauty is to be enjoyed everywhere on this island sanctuary and is brought to the fore in massages, facials and body treatments at the spa.

In Fiji’s east, the Wakaya Club & Spa is a private island resort as nature intended – lush, undisturbed rain forest and pristine white beaches. The island encompasses more than 850 hectares of diverse plant life, is surrounded by coral reef and has Fiji’s only marine reserve. The reserve is home to giant clams, vibrant coral and abundant sea life – a thrilling world to explore.

Facing page— Tranquility on Nukubati Private Island, which is limited to 14 guests.

Above— Dolphin Island Resort is the ultimate in high-end privacy.

Left— The bathroom in The Wakaya Club & Spa’s garden view bure has an open-air lava rock shower and oversized bath.

At The Wakaya Club & Spa, Mexican designer Bibiana Huber has worked with local indigenous timber and high-quality materials across the resort’s 10 guest bures and two private luxury villas. Her sensitive approach to design showcases the beauty of the island, as well as the art and culture of the South Pacific.

The purity and simplicity of Pacific Island living is celebrated at the eco-resort of Nukubati Private Island, which is limited to only 14 guests. This exclusive private-island getaway is Carbon-Zero certified and 100 per cent self-sufficient – as it has been for around 30 years.

Whether you are diving, exploring the organic gardens that flourish with fresh produce, being treated to a traditional massage, or learning about traditional culture, you tread a light footprint here.

Whatever your holiday pastime, this is the place where you will trace time in experiences, swims, naps, strolls and meals. And wherever you choose to stay in Fiji, you can be assured of the unsurpassed warm welcome of its people.

Above left— Nukubati produces its own electricity with one of the first and largest solar power plants in Fiji.

Above right— Quinoa salad with cucumber, spring onions, peanuts and Asian-style dressing at Dolphin Island.

Left— The Wakaya’s king suite has an ocean view and beautifully appointed living room with a wet-bar and Bose speakers.

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D:10 DESTINATION

Sri Lanka

The work of architect and tropical modernist Geoffrey Bawa remains as compelling as ever.

For an architect who didn’t qualify until he was 38, Geoffrey Bawa achieved astounding prolificacy during his 40-year career. Bawa, who died in 2003, abandoned law (his father’s vocation), retrained in the UK, then started out designing private homes in Colombo, his hometown. This segued into commissions for public buildings, progressed into a number of significant hotels and resorts, then returned to the public arena with Kotte Parliament and Seema Malaka Buddhist temple, both in Colombo. Bawa’s projects populate the capital, scatter the length of the country, and are found in Mauritius, Indonesia, Fiji, India, the Maldives, Singapore, Pakistan and Egypt.

Throughout his decades of productivity, Bawa still found time to develop ‘Number 11’, his Colombo residence, and ‘Lunuganga’, his six-hectare lakeside retreat in Bentota, south of the city. His genius lay in mastering regional context, embracing characteristics of classical Sinhalese architecture, nature and dissolving barriers between interior and exterior. His spatial organisation fused traditional applications and building forms with modernist functionality. His compositions of symmetry animated the whole. “I prefer to consider all past good architecture in Ceylon as just that – as good Ceylon architecture,” he said. “When you look at the better examples you will see that they look Ceylon squarely in the face. They look at the rain, at the termites, at the view to be had from a window, at the needs of the life of the time.”

The work of the master with strong regional tendencies can be explored at both his homes, hotels and public buildings throughout Sri Lanka.

Right— Bawa’s Colombo home has a number of courtyards, which are countered by interiority.

Far right— A stairway curves and spirals, culminating in a rooftop space.

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Above— ‘Number 11’, Geoffrey Bawa’s Colombo home, evolved as he purchased a series of dwellings on the laneway.

Right— The home is dotted with the artwork of Bawa’s friends and collaborators.

‘Number 11’, the Colombo residence ‘Number 11’ is clearly the hand of the master of tropical modernism. Bawa’s home spreads across a labyrinth of rooms, leafy loggias and light-dappled courtyards, the result of his gradual acquisition of a series of low-slung dwellings in Colombo 3, a central suburb in Sri Lanka’s sprawling capital. The home is open to the public and receives a steady stream of architectural tourists who are both awed and eager to take a poke around.

The guided tour starts in the garage, where you leave your shoes next to the architect’s beloved white Rolls Royce.

The immaculate vintage vehicle, which followed the late architect back to Sri Lanka from Britain, and was shipped to India when he worked in Madras, is now permanently parked in the garage.

From here, you step across the threshold and onto the home’s gleaming white polyurethaned floors. The tour weaves

its way through intimate spaces that contract and hold you close, then release you into areas that breathe, and a sculptural staircase that pops you up to the roof terrace. The home is a capsule of information about the architect, the company he kept and his ideas – all of this rippling out into various projects. Bawa surrounded himself with the work of artist friends and collaborators, including Laki Senanayake, Barbara Sansoni and Donald Friend. At Number 11, you’ll find tactile trinkets, books, stacks of magazines from the 80s, prototype furniture that ended up in different projects, and – oddly – the occasional stuffed toy. You’ll see the same black triangular wall lights used at the Heritance Ahungalla hotel, where they illuminate a striking black-on-white mural by Senanayake; the home’s curved sculptural stairwell with cut outs is mimicked at Avani Hotel on Bentota Beach, south of Colombo.

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Above— A series of framed portals at Avani hotel, Bentota Beach.

Left— The lobby at Kandalama – where design absorbs nature – features ‘Kandalama’ chairs, designed by Bawa and his practice.

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Bentota, Serendib, Neptune and Triton hotels While Kandalama (above and right) responds to the climate of the country’s dry zone, it’s Bawa’s hotels on the south coast that celebrate tropical modernism.

Bentota Beach Hotel (1969), Serendib (1970, now Avani), Neptune (1976), Triton (1981, now Heritance Ahungalla), among others, provide distinctively different and memorable environments.

Created with the limited materials available at the time, they contain original artwork by Bawa’s collaborator-friends and furniture designed by his practice.

At Bentota Beach Hotel, Ceylon’s first purpose-built resort, a massive stone bastion mimics the forts built by the Dutch during their rule of the island. Beneath a copper ceiling-hung sculpture, the visitor rises up stone stairs to reception where an exquisite batik lines the ceiling. Bordering a lake and the sea, the undulating grounds are dotted with groves of frangipani – Bawa’s beloved tropical tree.

Next door is Avani (formerly Serendib), boutique in size and simplicity, with its money shot of framed sequenced portals – one of Bawa’s most-photographed architectural moments. A little further south, Ahungalla is the epitome of restrained elegance. A magical series of spaces open up to the elements and send light skimming across bodies of water, taking the eye out to the Indian Ocean.

Kandalama hotel Kandalama, in Sri Lanka’s Cultural Triangle of key archaeological sites, is a superb example of contextual integrity, paired with skilfully executed drama. The monumental hotel plays off a monumental cultural site – Sigiriya, a former kingdom with a palace atop a rock 200 metres above the surrounding plain. The rock kingdom is an astonishing achievement in fifth-century town planning, architecture and landscaping and Bawa had a job dissuading the hotelier from building adjacent to the site. He eventually got his way and located the hotel 12 kilometres away so that, in scale and majesty, Kandalama took on the mighty rock from a respectful distance, with carefully choreographed views to the historic site.

When Kandalama opened in 1994, the public balked at the concrete monolith built into a vast rock overlooking a lake.

But as the jungle’s hand crept over to embrace the exterior, severity receded, bringing the sensational landscape into relief. In Colombo, there was a similar response when Kotte Parliament was unveiled. The public gasped at the gleaming copper rooftop of the building that embraced indigenous architecture within a modernist framework. In time, the copper aged in sublime harmony with the lake. It was a typical Bawa move.

Text Jo Bates

Photography Alamy; Jo Bates

‘Lunuganga’, the country estate The tuktuk journey from Bentota Beach to Bawa’s country retreat is a rough ride along a narrow village road. Perhaps the journey in the Rolls was a little smoother, but it’s hard to imagine.

‘Lunuganga’, which is also open to the public, was many things to the architect – it was his passion and refuge, and a place to experiment in design and landscaping.

He transformed the abandoned rubber plantation into a series of outdoor rooms that favour views and celebrate art.

Just off the terrace of Bawa’s bungalow stands one of his beloved frangipani, the branches of which he weighted down to draw their muscular form into shapes that pleased his eye.

The guided walk around the rural property takes in Bawa’s ideas and his whims – bells, each with a different ring, were dotted around the estate to summon a servant for a G&T, or whatever it was that the master required. While ‘Number 11’ is an introspective study in black-andwhite, furnished with mid-century pieces, Lunuganga merges Sri Lankan and colonial influences. Its stone-pillared, vine-covered entrance cues a Continental context, which seems fitting – the property was Bawa’s compromise to a life in Italy. After studying English at Cambridge and law in London, his extensive European travels kept leading him back to Italy, but his plans to purchase property there were thwarted by local bureaucracy and a lack of funds. He returned to Ceylon in 1948 and, inspired by ‘Brief’, his brother Bevis’ famous garden (where he entertained the likes of Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier), Bawa bought nearby Lunuganga.

Here, you can appreciate his acute sensitivity to environment, where context is deeply considered and landscaping anchors design.

Left, below— At Lunuganga, Bawa’s country estate, the architect weighted down the branches of the frangipani tree in order to sculpt its muscular form.

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Above The glazed box mirrors suburbia in Remuera, Auckland.

Opposite The exterior is constantly visible from the interior.

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Mirror Mirror A glazed box by José Bribiesca in suburban Auckland is as mysterious, intriguing and humble as the architect himself.

Text Giles Reid and Maggie Hubert Photography David Straight

New Zealand is not short of sleek houses, but only a handful are radical experiments in living.

Rewi Thompson’s house (1985) in Kohimaramara, Auckland, was one. A second is the mirror-glass house (1986) in Remuera, designed for Lois Ashton by her husband, the late José Bribiesca. Thompson’s house became iconic; the Ashton-Bribiesca house has been forgotten. Otherwise, they share much in common.

Minimal and mysterious, the Ashton-Bribiesca house is shorn of associations of ‘house’. It is a mirrorglazed box surrounded by suburbia, which it reflects and fragments. Its colour changes with the light; from sky blue to dusky pink and dark silver. Viewed from the outside, its interior is unknown. From inside, everything outside is in constant view.

The façade consists of mirror glazing bonded with tape to aluminium box sections bracketed off a steel frame. Windows are flush. The flat roofing either suggests an intended short lifespan or an optimistic view of Auckland’s weather. Like Thompson’s house, it was never finished. Now vacant and up for sale, it is being overtaken by plant life.

If the house is confronting today, it was even more so when built. Mirror glazing was deeply controversial.

Mid-80s downtown Auckland was in the grip of an unprecedented building boom fuelled by stock market speculation. Nothing exemplified this bubble more than shiny mirror-clad buildings.

Yet, what was this cheap wonder-product doing to the city as public space? What was the scope for regional identity, when every new building did no more than mutely reflect its neighbour, when, in the words of Dr Mark Wigley, “Auckland is [just] aping Dallas”? Bribiesca’s house was not the first example of mirror glass moving into the suburbs. Robert Paterson’s house for Doug Walsh in Takapuna dates from 1982. Maurice Mahoney’s 1987 design at 18 Butler Street in Opawa, Christchurch, is contemporaneous with Bribiesca’s.

However, mirror glazing is just one of several elements treated as found objects, which make an architecture specific to its time and place. Bribiesca’s plan is an ‘L’ shape, hinged around a corrugated aluminium drum concealing the WC. It spirals upwards with extraordinary beauty to a ceiling capped with

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Top The exterior couldn’t be any more flush with the interior.

Above Like much of the building material, the wrought-iron spiral staircase in the living room was reclaimed from a demolition site. Following page The minimal and mysterious ‘Ashton-Bribiesca’ home as dusk falls.

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a circular skylight. His friend John Seccombe, who welded the steel frame together, recalled that his only brief was for it to “look like a Robertson’s jam jar”.

A wrought-iron spiral staircase in the living area was reclaimed from a demolition site. The red-steel front doors inscribed with the word ‘Choice’, were also salvaged. The floral carpet could have come from the heavily patterned Edwardian interiors illustrating Ernst Plischke’s Design and Living. By contrast, the Gaggenau kitchen and Oscar Niemeyer swimming pool bring a sense of displaced modernist luxury.

José Maria de Parra y Bribiesca III was born in Taylor, Texas, USA, in 1936. He was raised in Holcomb, Kansas, and joined the US Navy in 1955.

He was stationed in Christchurch around 1957, as part of the US-led Antarctica research mission Operation Deep Freeze, and met Ashton on a blind date.

Bribiesca worked briefly at Warren and Mahoney before moving to Auckland, where he was employed by pioneer modernist Franz Iseke, who was renowned for his steel-framed houses. It’s believed he worked on Iseke’s design at 6 Kurahaupo Street, Orakei, which survives. He applied to take professional examination with the NZIA in 1960 and married Ashton the following year, with Ian Athfield as his best man.

A lull in building led to a fresh start in jewellery making and the couple exhibited at Brown’s Mill, Auckland’s first permanent craft market, established in a disused flour mill in Durham Lane. Spanning five decades, the jewellery, which was almost exclusively rings, is a remarkably consistent, immediately recognisable body of work. In contrast to stones, precious metals and circles, it combines polished chrome, coloured Perspex and square shanks.

Geometric motifs were commonly taken from New Zealand architecture. Series 77 and 78, for example, explored the work of John Scott.

The 1970s saw the output scale up after attracting the attention of LJ Fisher and his wife Iris. The Fishers funded the mass-production of AB Rings and, at one stage, employed 25 people. They sold in Australia and the US, attracting overseas buyers such as Mary Quant, but commercial success robbed them of the quality control they sought. The venture closed around 1971, leading to a period of drift.

By 1980, times were proving tough. To supplement their income, Bribiesca and Ashton worked as night cleaners at the gym of Les Mills, future mayor of Auckland. Incredibly, Bribiesca was there four years before revealing to Mills that he was a trained architect. Over time, Mills became firm friends with the guy in the judo suit and “Basque peasant beret”.

Mills gambled and engaged Bribiesca to knock together two buildings, creating the mirror-fronted Les Mills’ World of Fitness on Victoria Street West.

Later, they expanded the site to include the eradefining late-80s Grapes Nightclub. The façade, in both appearance and construction, is almost identical to the Remuera house.

With some possible overlap, the Remuera house came just after the design for Les Mills and Bribiesca and Ashton lived there from around 1986. With his tendencies to collect – even hoard – the home became rich with relics from his life, each of which would provoke a story. Of his collection of Chinese pots, Bribiesca would say that Frank Lloyd Wright had only two, while he had 12 in his possession.

The 1987 stock market crash stopped the boom in its tracks, though Mills commissioned other schemes from Bribiesca up until the early 90s, including a proposal to redevelop Princes Wharf with an underwater car park, big glass dome and hanging gardens. The downturn forced Bribiesca into a career reboot and a return to rings.

‘Back to Square One’ was held at Fingers Gallery in November 1996, in both Ashton and Bribiesca names.

Thereafter, Ashton’s input into the designs faded.

Bribiesca went on to exhibit at Fingers numerous times over the next decade. His key supporter had became Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet of fashion brand World and he made all the jewellery the models wore on their first catwalk show at London Fashion Week in 1999. His work featured in their shows for the next 20 years.

Although still close, the couple separated after about five years together at Remuera. Bribiesca lived at the house on and off, staying there when he worked on maintaining the property. After Ashton died in 2014, Bribiesca was in and out of the house more often, although he also had a pensioner’s flat in Penrose. The marital home became a well-worn path of the spaces he used and others he avoided. He stopped using the upstairs area – it had been Ashton’s space and was full of her belongings, which made him incredibly sad. In this way the house wore its own history of experiences, happiness and sadness – that sense of energy played up in its reflection and absorption of its materiality. It was magical to come upon, sunk into bright green overgrown grass, banana trees and various other outdoors treasures.

After Bribiesca’s death in April 2019, his daughter Sofie presented her own rings in black, titled ‘The Mourning’. Today, Ashton-Bribiesca’s jewellery is part of international collections. Their house, however, sits empty after his death, and at the time of printing it was advertised as “Estate – Section for Sale”. It retains the power to shock and intrigue. In Sofie’s words, the jewellery and the house both “stand out and disappear”.

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The nappy bag, the school bags, the

, the laptop bag, the

,

the uhhh that still needs to go to the salvos bag, the gym bag, the

, the water bottle, the boxing gloves, the blanket, the

,

, the spare dummy,

the car seat, the sippy cup, the

the toy that’s name has changed so many times you can’t remember, a small library of books, a small collection of DVD’s, the headphones, the

, the tupperware for three different snacks, the footballs,

the basketballs, basketball sneakers,

, the action figure for

whatever superhero movie came out this month, the fold-up chairs, the

, the picnic blanket, the beach umbrella, the brolly,

the skateboard, the scooter, the helmets, the best friend and the imaginary one too, the kid whose parent is running late and “can they get a lift home please”, the sleepover, the sleeping bags, the turning the dinner for 6 into dinner for 10, the

that needs his own seat because apparently

he doesn’t feel comfortable travelling without his belt and the

.

Luxury is a full life, with room to spare.

The spacious Mercedes-Benz V-Class.

V-Class

Home of the Year

1996-2020

City Town Island Beach Paddock Women Partnership Sole Wood View Budget Concrete

It’s our 25th Home of the Year and we are celebrating a quarter-century of New Zealand’s best houses. Inspired by Ruth Buchanan’s wonderful taxonomy of the collections at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, in which she categorised each decade by key metrics, we thought we’d order by context, and then count some key indicators. The results are revealing.

There aren’t many in small towns, and rather a lot at the beach. There are nowhere near enough women, and there’s a lot of timber. Metrics aside, there are 25 engaging houses by leading architects – and a lot of brave clients.

City 8 Women 1 Partnership 3 Wood 4 View 2 Concrete 3 Sole 1 We’ve awarded our fair share of city houses over the years – starting with the very first Home of the Year, the CliffordForsyth house of 1996, designed by Patrick Clifford. Though when we say city, we mostly mean Auckland – and slowly but surely, our winners have shifted from the eastern suburbs to the inner west.

Year

1996 Project

‘Clifford-Forsyth’ house Practice

Architectus Location

Remuera, Auckland

Partnership Wood

Year

Partnership

Project

Concrete

2002 ‘Remuera’ house Practice

Stevens Lawson Architects Location

Remuera, Auckland

Year

Women

Project

Concrete

1997 ‘Westmere Townhouses’ Practice

Felicity Wallace Architects Location

Westmere, Auckland

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Year

1999 Project

‘Courtyard’ house Practice

Gerrad Hall Architects Location

Ponsonby, Auckland

Sole

Year

1999 Project

‘Courtyard’ house Practice

Gerrad Hall Architects Location

Ponsonby, Auckland

Partnership View Wood

Year

View

Project

Wood

2007 ‘Cox’s Bay’ house Practice

Stevens Lawson Architects Location

Westmere, Auckland

Year

2019

Concrete

Project

‘Diagrid’ house Practice

Jack McKinney Architects Location

Grey Lynn, Auckland

Year

2015

Wood

Project

‘E-Type’ house Practice

RTA Studio Location

Grey Lynn, Auckland

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Town 2 Partnership 1 Wood 2 Budget 2 Sole 1 It’s happened only twice, but small-town New Zealand has produced two brilliant winners – Masterton’s ‘The Signal Box’,

by Melling Morse Architects, and ‘Town House’ in Cambridge by Christopher Beer Architects. Both are beguiling houses built on tight budgets in charming towns.

Year

Partnership

Year

Sole

Project

Wood

Project

Wood

Practice

Budget

Practice

Budget

2008 ‘The Signal Box’ Melling Morse Architects Location

Masterton, Wairarapa

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2017 ‘Town House' Christopher Beer Architects Location

Cambridge, Waikato

Island 3 Women 1 Partnership 2 Wood 3 View 3

Year

Women

Project

Partnership

Practice

Wood

Location

View

2009 ‘Waiheke Island’ house Mitchell Stout Architects Waiheke Island

What is it about islands? All three winners are built from timber, and all of them – from Mitchell Stout to Stevens Lawson and Pete Bossley – have a clearly legible exuberance, as well as a sense of drama. Maybe it’s the cost of building on islands: if you’re going to do it, you’d better make it good, and you’re certain to make the most of the view.

Year

Wood

Project

View

1998 ‘Island Complex’ Practice

Pete Bossley Architects Location

Bay of Islands

Year

Partnership

Project

Wood

Practice

View

2013 ‘Headland’ house Stevens Lawson Architects Location

Waiheke Island

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Beach 8 Women 2 Partnership 4 Wood 7 View 8 Concrete 1 Year

1999 Project

‘Rawhiti’ house Practice

Fearon Hay Location

Rawhiti, Bay of Islands

Partnership Wood View

Year

Wood

Project

View

2001 ‘Manly Street Beach House’

From pavilions by Fearon Hay to Ken Crosson’s wonderful Otama bach and two Piha winners by Lance and Nicola Herbst, the beach is very much the natural choice for Home of the Year. It’s where dreams become houses – and where well-heeled clients let their hair down in a way they might not at home.

The absence of city-planning controls helps a little, too.

Practice

Maison Rue Jolie, for Cheshire Architects Location

Akaroa, Canterbury

Year

Wood

Project

View

2003 ‘Coromandel Bach’ Practice

Crosson Clarke Carnachan Location

Otama, Coromandel

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Year

Partnership

Year

Project

Wood

Project

Practice

View

Practice

2011 ‘Karekare’ house Bull O’Sullivan Architects

2018 ‘Kawakawa’ house Herbst Architects

Location

Location

Karekare, west Auckland

Piha, west Auckland

Women Partnership Wood View

Year

2004 Project

‘Beach Retreat’ Practice

Concrete

Location

View

Pete Bossley Architects Bay of Islands

Year

Wood

Project

View

2020 ‘Light Mine’ Practice

Crosson Architects Location

Kuaotunu, Coromandel

Year

2012 Project

‘Pōhutukawa’ house Practice

Herbst Architects Location

Piha, west Auckland

Women Partnership Wood View H O M E N E W ZE AL AN D

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Paddock 4 Women 2 Partnership 3 View 4 Concrete 1 Faced with a little less view (though Stevens Lawson’s Te Kaitaka admittedly has an eyeful), these houses define rural living. Nat Cheshire’s ‘Eyrie’ enlivened a paddock beside a mudflat and Mitchell Stout’s ‘Otoparae’ house brought the rocky landscape inside. The Herbsts, meanwhile, made a house from re-purposed rusted corrugate.

Wood

4

Year

2014 Project

‘Eyrie’ Practice

Cheshire Architects Location

Kaiwaka, Northland

Wood View

Year

Partnership

Project

Wood

2010 ‘Te Kaitaka’ Practice

Stevens Lawson Architects Location

Wānaka, Central Otago

Year

View

2005

Concrete

‘Otoparae’ house

Project

Practice

Mitchell Stout Architects Location

King Country

Women Partnership Wood View Year

2016 Project

‘K Valley’ house Practice

Herbst Architects Location

Kauaeranga Valley, Coromandel

Women Partnership Wood View 72

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Runner-up A permanent home in a beautiful collection of buildings on Waiheke

by Cheshire Architects — 94 Best Retreat By balancing exposure and containment, Cheshire crafts a spectacular retreat — 112 Best Colour & Detail Pac Studio designs a family crib that conjures remoteness amid suburban Wānaka — 128 Finalist Belinda George cuts a retreat from a perfect circle on a treasured piece of coastal land — 144 Finalist John Irving places a dart due north where it settles into the Mangawhai topography — 160

R ES E N E C H A RC OA L

Home of the Year

Winner A playful and dramatic design by Crosson Architects remains humble by the beach — 74

WINNER

Reaching for the light on a sand dune

Our Home of the Year is playful, dramatic and still humble – a beautifully conceived masterpiece in the dunes at Kuaotunu.

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TEXT Simon Farrell-Green P H OTO G R A P H Y Simon Devitt

This house is an exploration of strong sculptural forms that reference the mine shafts of the area’s long-abandoned gold mines.

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Right The inverted shafts mine the sun and moon light, extending into the sky as opposed to the earth.

Below The cladding is reclaimed swamp totara, reused as a rainscreen. This timber picks up on tones found along the coast – a contrast to the rich and highly crafted timber interior.

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A couple of years ago, on the way to my family bach at Opito Bay on the Coromandel Peninsula, I noticed a fairly extraordinary house rising from the dunes on Kuaotunu. Sitting prettily on a dune above one of the nicest swimming beaches on the Coromandel, it was obvious that something special was happening. It was long and low, and eventually, tall, pyramid-shaped towers rose out of the roof.

And we all wondered quite what was happening.

“They’re modest people and they didn’t want to be too showy,” says architect Ken Crosson of the house, which our judges have named Home of the Year 2020.

“They wanted something low – something that didn’t overshadow the beach.”

Chris and Bob de Leeuw came to Crosson – whose own bach at nearby Otama won Home of the Decade in 2010 – after seeing a house he designed at nearby Whangapoua, where they used to have a bach. They wanted beachfront, which has become phenomenally expensive at Whangapoua in recent years, and a quieter, more barefoot spot with fewer people on the beach. Eventually, they bought a spectacular site at Kuaotunu with an old Lockwood on it, looking out over the azure water of the bay to the Mercury Islands.

There’s a giant pōhutukawa for shade, and a meandering path down the dune to the water – it’s all of 150 metres to one of the nicest swimming beaches in New Zealand. Their brief: low-slung, all one level, with room for children and grandchildren.

Right The owner, a retired builder, built the home, living here for seven months and finessing the details, which can be clearly read on entry.

Below The social organisation of the plan is relaxed and appropriate for a retreat – laid out as a series of parts to be lived in privately and independently, or opened up to connect buildings and enliven outdoor space in between.

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“We liked the relaxedness and looseness of the bach plan. The house steps forward and back – mapping the movement of the sun.”

Through a career spanning three decades, Crosson has built true to place, with strong narratives and, often, a playfulness, even exuberance. At Otama, the decks winch up and down when he’s not in residence; at Whangapoua the whole front of the house wheels up and the house is designed so it can be moved back or forward on the site. In Titirangi, with a house that was a finalist in Home of the Year 2015, he designed a red box in the bush using corrugated steel laid in alternating panels.

The site isn’t without its challenges, either. It’s pinched between the beach and State Highway 25, with neighbours close on three sides. So, while the formal play of the place is fabulous, the nuts and bolts of the house are actually just as important.

Using the front of the original bach as the front of the new house, Crosson conceived an open-plan living-dining-kitchen area, with a main bedroom and bathroom tucked beside. Accessed by a covered walkway are two more bedrooms for children and grandchildren, while across a lawn is a third structure – a self-contained space with its own sitting room, bedroom and bathroom.

The space in between is loose, slightly undefined, shaded by the pōhutukawa and sheltered from the prevailing afternoon easterly, able to be used for cricket or drinks in equal measure. Spaces can be opened up and closed down, depending on the season and the number of occupants; it has slept two and it has slept a dozen, and it works equally well for both.

“We liked the relaxedness and looseness of the bach plan,” says Crosson. “The house steps forward and back – mapping the movement of the sun.”

For a long time, Crosson struggled with the rest of the design. How do you create something expressive and playful when your clients are set on something quiet? How do you add movement to a plan that is otherwise rigorous and rational? Eventually, he realised that, while long and low was a worthy ideal, the design also needed verticality – but the whole house didn’t need to be vertical.

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Chris de Leeuw and a guest in the ‘KXN’ kitchen by IMO.

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Above The living area overlooks the bay.

Right The house is designed for summer and winter use: a ‘Cheminees Philippe’ fireplace from FL Bone creates winter warmth.

Opposite In the main bedroom, the ‘mine’ is positioned directly over the bed for a view of the stars.

“We talked to the clients about the spatial quality underneath, the play of light but also the experience – the mine is right over their bed... it was a big sell.”

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Left and right Varying heights and positions break up the form and establish identity and interest. The house steps forward and back, the plan mapping the movement of the sun. Deep overhangs provide protection from the summer sun.

Right, below The totara rainscreen boards are mounted on custommade Perspex, which enables removal for maintenance, a detail described by the Home of the Year judges as ‘bonkers’ in its complexity.

He hit upon the idea of working with the history of mining in the area. During the 1870s gold rush, Kuaotunu was once one of the busiest mining towns on the Coromandel Peninsula; the hills are still riddled with abandoned mine shafts. Eventually, he took that idea and inverted it, designing tall, almost pyramidal towers topped with skylights that drag down the sun.

“It meant the whole thing wasn’t vertical, but it also wasn’t a traditional roof,” he says. “We were playing with this idea of locality – and it just fitted.”

In Crosson’s imagination, those ‘mines’ are inverted, placed askew on top of the house, reaching at angles to the east to wash light into spaces below. From the outside, they give the house a monumental, but not overpowering, feel – you can see sky and trees between them. The effect is delightful inside, at once playful and practical, especially at night and in the late afternoon.

“We talked to the clients about the spatial quality underneath, the play of light but also the experience – it [the mine] is right over their bed. But it was a big sell.”

While they were initially intrigued, the de Leeuws soon got cold feet, and asked Crosson to look at other options, including a gable. “I’m pretty sure he designed the worst gable he could,” says Chris of Crosson’s plan, laughing. Eventually, after much consideration, they went for it. “They’re not without courage and so in the end they came back to it,” says Crosson.

While various cladding options were proposed – including stainless steel – the whole structure ended up being clad in reclaimed totara boards, 35mm thick and 225mm high, with 20mm gaps between each, so even from far away you can read the horizontal lines rather than just seeing a big silver box.

The timbery, subtle feel continues inside, where the whole building (including the ‘mines’) is lined with bandsawn cedar, whitewashed to stop it from yellowing. The detail continues, where two interior boards equal one outside board. Despite the bachiness of the plan, there’s a zealous attention to detail in the thing – on the corners of the house, the heads of the window sit above the ceiling, creating a box effect on the outside and a sense of expansiveness inside.

It is a thoroughly beautiful house. “We were obsessed with the horizontality, but then breaking that horizontality with the window elements and light mines, and then breaking rigidity by spacing the cladding.”

It’s distinctive but recessive, its ‘light mines’ elevating an otherwise elegant, low box. You see the dance between the horizontal and vertical, a play between wide and tall. It’s a play that is toally engaging, and fits the de Leeuw’s brief perfectly.

“We like the modesty,” says Crosson, “but we also love the memorability.”

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The view from the living area and bedroom looks out over Kuaotunu beach to Great Mercury Island.

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Design notebook

How do you make a holiday home like this feel like a bach? We think of a bach as a place of relaxation and retreat.

A place where you can challenge the way of experiencing the rituals of everyday life. The en suite bath, for example, has a private window looking directly to the beach, the shower in the bedroom pod sits adjacent to a pōhutukawa tree with a window that allows the morning sun to stream in. We’ve created places where you can read a book in a sunny bay window. Reading books, barbecuing, bathing, showering, dining, sitting and sleeping: this home celebrates all of these attitudes.

You’ve created some memorable holiday homes in the Coromandel. How does your creative process play out? We hope that they are all unique and represent a nod to holidaying and a more simplistic view on life and way of living. We approach every project without any preconceived ideas.

Every home is a special undertaking for our clients. The site, context and brief offers a unique opportunity and therefore response.

The design needs to sit appropriately for sun, view, access, and exposure but if we can we find another level of meaning, a narrative for the design, then they can resonate with ‘place’ more. We analyse and respond to what we discover.

Q&A with architect Ken Crosson of Crosson Architects

How did you encourage the owners to take that extra step and say yes to the ‘light mines’ concept? It was a bit of a hard sell! Chris and Bob are courageous and wanted something a little different, but essentially on a single level. We hit upon the idea fairly early on in the process but they needed to be convinced. Once we talked about the spatial interest, the spatial experience, the way the building would read inside and out, which we demonstrated with sketches and models, they nervously came in behind us.

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1. Entry 2. Kitchen 3. Deck 4. Living 5. Dining 6. Bedroom 7. En suite 8. Bathroom

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Previous page The dynamic of the house changes beautifully at night, when spotlights wash up the ‘mines’.

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Top Sunrise over the Coromandel.

Above In the guest wing, a window seat provides a welcome spot for contemplation.

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HOME + ALTHERM

GOLD MINE

Project ‘Light Mine’

Architects Crosson Architects Location Kuaotunu, Coromandel Brief A retreat by the sea with room for children and grandchildren

When the owners of this retreat at Coromandel’s Kuaotunu first met with architect Ken Crosson, the brief was for a low-slung, single-level dwelling: something modest and unassuming. The house that now stands is still both those things, but has also become something unique in New Zealand architecture.

When you look back at the house from the beach, the sight is both expected and surprising. In common with many architectural holiday homes dotted around the country – including a few of Crosson’s previous works – the overall form is low and defined horizontally by natural materials. In this case, cladding formed of thick bands of reclaimed totara make for a home that sits staunchly and comfortably in its surroundings, mimicking the colour of the sand and the lines of grass.

The house is made up of three low boxes, each containing a different function. The boxes are scattered around a loose sort of grassy courtyard, with every space in the house opening out onto it through Metro Series sliding doors.

The beachside box contains living areas and a main bedroom. Behind that, a separate building connected by a covered walkway has a bunkroom and a bedroom.

Across the courtyard, there’s a selfcontained one-bedroom apartment.

Yet, the horizontality – and indeed, the casualness of the building – is broken both by the ‘light mines’ that sit on the roof – the architect’s ingenious response to the

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area’s mining history – and the intelligent use of glazing. The light mines themselves are deep ceiling recesses placed across the house, drawing light down into the home and making the inside space feel voluminous. “The actual position of each mine is a direct connection to a key spatial programme beneath them,” says Sam Caradus, of Crosson Architects: “Living, dining and sleeping spaces each have their own ‘mine’.”

Throughout the house, a variety of experiences create a lively, dynamic home at different times of the day, and different times of year. In the guest bathroom, a slot window at shoulder height in the shower gives you the feeling that you’re almost showering outside in the trees.

In the living area, an east-facing window seat catches the morning sun – here, the head of the window is recessed and the corner of the glass minimised to maximise the view. “Capturing and framing views

with the least amount of obstruction possible is always paramount,” says Caradus. “We are always interested in the most minimal profiles so the focus is through the opening.”

This is another way of breaking the horizontality: from inside the dwelling, it gives the sense of compressed space opening out to an expansive view. It’s a little detail that makes for an uncommon, and uplifting, spatial experience.

“While physically the house represents the exploration of many things we as a practice are interested in, it really stands as testament to the bravery and courage of our clients,” says Caradus. “They were prepared to come on a journey and trust in the process. It’s one thing for an architect to dream it up. It’s completely another to have a client believe in your vision and commit to realising it.”

For a video and photo gallery of this home, visit altherm.co.nz/goldmine

1 and 2— Living areas feature sliding doors and picture windows to the sea view. 3— Sliding doors on the land side of the living area open to a sheltered deck and lawn.

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RUNNER-UP

Of canvas, timber and being under the stars

Cheshire designs a permanent home in a beautiful collection of buildings on Waiheke.

TEXT Simon Farrell-Green P H OTO G R A P H Y Jackie Meiring

The house is comprised of a trio of structures, with the living pavilion facing south to the view and two sleeping pods placed off the central courtyard, where Frank the dog stands.

The concrete bench extends from the kitchen in the living pavilion out to the courtyard. The rock on which it rests comes from the site, where the garage is now located. The ‘Tio’ stools

by Massproductions are from Simon James.

An eager Frank in the courtyard. The living pavilion is wrapped in seamed, steel roofing and the sleeping pavilions are plywood pods wrapped in Docril canvas.

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“The idea of an encampment, maintaining the character of the site rather than building a big residence on it, became really strong...”

People often ask Philip Cryer and Deborah Botica whether they get wet in winter on their way to bed.

The bedroom at their Waiheke Island home, you see, is contained in a small cabin wrapped romantically in canvas, a few steps across a courtyard from the main living pavilion. It has a small fireplace of its own, and the shower in the bathroom opens to the outdoors.

It’s all very lovely, a sort of permanently inhabited encampment, but the question still arises: isn’t it a pain in winter? “And I say no, I watch the rain radar,” says Cryer. When there’s a shower coming, they go to bed, light the fire and read books.

Cryer likes to tell you the only long-term house he’s ever owned is a small bach at Medlands Beach on Great Barrier Island; Botica likes to get away from the city as often as possible. So when they met nine years ago, they decided quite quickly to live remotely on Waiheke Island. They didn’t want a spectacular cliff-top site with wide-screen views over the Hauraki Gulf. “Our experience from Great Barrier,” says Cryer, “is that you might have one day in a week when it’s beautiful, but the rest of the time you’re trying to get out of the wind.”

Eventually, a close friend told them about a site due to come on the market. Despite being on the south side of the island, with north behind a steep hill, it made sense – and there was a beautiful view of the bay framed by the land around it, but it wasn’t exposed to the prevailing wind. “You’ve got the hill behind you, so you’re protected on all sides and it has a ridge in front. I just loved it, and I said to Deborah, ‘This is it.’”

After a lot of thinking, they realised they didn’t want one single building on the land, and they wanted to be off the grid. Around that time, Nat Cheshire won Home of the Year 2014 with two little black cabins above a tidal estuary at Kaiwaka, and something about the project’s contingency connected with the couple.

“Being outside really makes me feel alive,” says Botica.

“I think that’s possibly where the idea came from, just being in touch and not living in a house.”

So they rang Cheshire, and went to see him, and he liked them and said he’d like to do it, but he couldn’t work on it for a year. And they were okay with that.

When he got around to it, Cheshire and his collaborators Sarah Gilbertson and Kate Walker realised their clients instincts were right, and started talking about the idea of an ‘unhouse’. “The more time they spent there, the more they loved its natural characteristics,” says Gilbertson. “The idea of encampment, maintaining the character of the site rather than building a big residence on it, became really strong for them.”

Accordingly, the Cheshire team sought to carefully place three buildings in such a way that the landscape would flow around and through them – a main living pavilion, a bedroom with a bathroom and a shower that opens to the outside, and a bunkroom with a bathroom. They are connected to each other but apart, held by the courtyard where there’s sun, but there isn’t any wind. “There needed to be some weaving,” says Cheshire. “When you mix paint, you mix blue and yellow and you get green – but blue and

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Left The canvas emphasises the informality of the arrangement, the sound of it changing with the elements. When the wind picks up, you could be on a yacht as the canvas creaks and groans; the rain is just as emotive when it comes in. The canvas, which is held precisely at apertures and lashed and overlapped at corners, was installed

by Interiors and Coverings.

Right The concrete steps to the main bedroom lend the effect of entering a caravan.

The wood-turned door pull is by Dave Harmes.

Below A timber-lined light portal in the sleeping pavilion.

yellow are destroyed. When you weave, you get green but you still have blue and yellow. That’s what we were trying to do between building and site. The courtyard is a place in between, it’s both building and site – but it’s also some third thing.”

The slope of the land carries on unbroken, through, underneath and around the bedroom structures, with the main living pavilion sitting more heavily on the site, a heel holding up the land above in a way that is not, on the face of it, a particularly New Zealand response. As Cheshire notes, it would have been easier to turn the main living pavilion around so that it ran the full width of the site, with all the functions opening onto the courtyard. But if you did that, you’d lose the sense of containment, and the drama of spaces that are different to each other but connected. “It’s like a pin or a wedge and the living room is a termination point,” he says.

The main house is wrapped in green standing-seam steel roofing that drapes over the tall pitch – some nine metres at its highest – and down to the ground.

It’s a tough building on the outside, copping the wind when it does blow, and soft on the inside, where the walls and ceiling are lined with Oregon recycled from a demolished building in Wyndham Street, Auckland.

In Cheshire’s mind, it’s something of a tent fly, the steel exterior wrapping and protecting the soft timber interior. “It’s a slightly fragile timber thing protected by a roof,” he says. “So the timber is skinny and faceted at the edges – fingertip stuff.”

Inside, the Oregon is battered and weathered – it’s already had two lives, as Cheshire notes – and though it’s a new building, the place feels lived in. You tend to wander into the house via the courtyard and the kitchen, which has open shelves with handmade ceramics, and from here you’re drawn through the space to the view, carefully framed by one window.

It is a soft, surprisingly enclosing place – partly thanks to the upholstery in the sitting area, a luxurious touch in such a raw space. There’s a social end, near the courtyard, and an end where you hunker down by the fire, or stare at the view. There’s very little art or decoration: Botica has hung three paintings, including a vivid orange Sally Gabori she’s owned for years.

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Left The interior is lined in recycled Oregon from Timber Recycling.

‘Saucer Bubble Pendants’ by George Nelson for Herman Miller hang from custom brass arms. A work

by Sally Gabori brings colour to an otherwise neutral but rich palette.

The ‘Tio’ stools by Massproductions are from Simon James.

Right The custom Oregon cabinetry is by Ramma Construction.

The mugs and dinner set are by Sophie Moran, a Melbournebased ceramicist.

Right, below Woodturned hooks in the timber-lined entrance are by Dave Harmes.

Above Deborah Botica and Maggie in front of the macrocarpa-clad garage.

Left, top The home was built by Liam Ramsey and Hilly Bridger, who carefully numbered each piece of timber to ensure it aligned perfectly on installation. The rug is from Wilson & Dorset.

The upholstered wall, ceiling panels, built-in sofa and window box are by Forma.

Left The ‘Aether’ suspended fireplace is from Aurora. The pottery vessel on the table is by Jane Burn.

There is a formal front door, but most people come straight up and into the courtyard, where there’s loose planting and soft edges, pea gravel underfoot and a long concrete table that’s an extension of the kitchen bench, a trick that drags the kitchen out into the middle space, and makes the other areas of the living room more contemplative.

Outside, the two small cabins are soft, simple, waterproof plywood boxes with canvas that tightly wraps the corners of the buildings and stretches over deep window and door sills to keep the weather out, and extends the threshold between outside and in. The openings are small and there are handcrafted door handles and touches of timber. There’s sensuality and light, and the noise the canvas makes

in the wind and rain is wonderful. “We explored lots of options,” says Gilbertson. “We looked at netting and planting, but we always came back to the canvas.”

Thank goodness, because it’s delightful. “You might get wet,” says Botica of going to bed in winter, “but so what? We’ve just had to relax. The dog jumps on the bed and leaves muddy footprints, and the floor’s never clean. People say, ‘Don’t you care?’ And we say no.

We just want it to feel lived in.”

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Right and below The shower in the main bedroom pavilion opens to the outside, and is painted in Dairycoat from Enviropaints, a paint typically used in milking sheds.

Opposite A deep sill in the main bedroom.

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Design notebook

This highly resolved encampment is a permanent home. Talk us through how the concept came about. nat cheshire Deborah and Philip were so unusually engaged in this place. It wasn’t just a site with a view awaiting a house. It was dirt and rocks and bugs and air and shadow and change and a thousand other things.

To us, it felt like this sense of immersion was the thing to preserve. So the project became a hunt for a specific tension: between fragile and firm, fluid and still, exposure and retreat, smallness and generosity.

Q&A with Nat Cheshire and Sarah Gilbertson of Cheshire Architects

than a debate: they challenged us, with their relationship to the place and their diffidence about orthodox luxuries, so we challenged them back. We fought over and for ideas. It was not often easy. Some of it was painful. All of it was worth it.

There were challenges in wrapping the out buildings, how were they resolved? sarah gilbertson Canvas let us amplify the intricate woodiness of the cabin thresholds by contrasting them with a skin that is both taut and soft. You move closely past that skin, and their softness was important in shaping an atmosphere of relaxed encampment. The fabric selected by Kate [Walker] early on was always our favourite – with just enough green woven through it to lift it out of grey, it sits beautifully against the kanuka hillside. What the canvas hides is some careful engineering required to keep the apertures taught, to enable occupation of the thresholds and dissipate wind loads on the fabric. The canvas is held precisely at the apertures but lashed and overlapped at each corner to enable maintenance and tensioning as the canvas stretches in response to climate and time.

The final details were a collaboration with the installers [Interiors and Coverings] – a marine company who proposed a clever turnkey tightening design and made a beautiful job of the installation.

Which aspects of the project do you enjoy most? nc Their love of it, and ownership of it. The sighing creaking canvas like a yacht’s sail on a quiet night.

The soft bulge of timber in your palms as you grasp a door handle. Climbing inside a bed like a cabin. The woodpile under a window of ceramics. The mixture of precision and insouciance. All the sensual stuff.

The owners lived onsite in a container and were very hands-on throughout the build. How much was the process a collaboration with them? nc We don’t ever really make work on our own. I was a painter once; I stopped it because there was too much of me in it. At the same time the home was less a collaboration

1. Entry 2. Bathroom 3. Driveway 4. Living 5. Dining 6. Kitchen 7. Bedroom 8. En suite 9. Coutyard

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3 Previous page The encampment is set on about eight hectares of land, where the owners have planted hundreds of native trees. The home is off-grid, with solar panels located elsewhere on the site.

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Top The ‘Sparky’ fire in the main bedroom is from Wagener.

Above The study in the living pavilion sits behind timber panelling.

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HOME + JAMES HARDIE

BEST DRESSED Project Riverhead project Designer Laurence Nash of Nashdesign Architecture Builders Rick Hassett Builders Location Riverhead, Auckland Brief A light-filled, lowmaintenance home with easy flow and organic connection to outdoor living areas

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Laurence Nash likes to think of this project as ‘The Swallow Roof House’. Not long after the striking, angular roof was installed, he and builder Rick Hassett sent a drone up to take a look at it from above. What they discovered was, with the tail-flick over the entry, there was an unintended, but nevertheless subtle, resemblance to a swallow in flight. “It’s a pleasant surprise when architecture reminds us of something found in nature,” says Nash.

The steel-framed roof presented both design and construction challenges due to its slope in two directions and its considerable span inside, over the double-height spaces, and outside, over the covered outdoor dining area. “The roof form ties the house together; it leads

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1— The profile of this significant home comes into its own from several vantage points.

2— Angles, timber lining and Stria Cladding combine to make a statement at the home’s entrance.

3— Stria Cladding

by James Hardie is an excellent choice, particularly on the southern side where native bush will grow and embed the building in the landscape.

along the hallway, flows up above the stairs to the mezzanine and floats above and over the glazed wall to form a shelter over the outdoor area,” says Nash. “It both anchors and uplifts the house.”

The brief for this project called for the home to make the most of the site’s northern aspect while capturing views of the south. The alignment of the completed home, which shifts depending on the view, is only truly discoverable when you reach the second floor, says Nash. “It’s about the progression from the entry to the heart of the house.”

Once the surrounding bush regenerates, the house will sit right on the edge of the bush line. With its singular roofline following the contour of the land, the use of timber combined with smart

black Stria Cladding by James Hardie will help to define the house against the bush edge. Its sculptural exterior also lends itself for a seamless transition into the constructed landscaping of the north-facing garden.

“The client wanted a low-maintenance material that could be easily looked after, particularly for the south side where the native bush will eventually come right up to the house walls,” says Nash.

The durability and stability of a fibre-cement product such as the Stria Cladding was particularly important when Nash was considering the all-day sun on the north side of the house and the colder south side, where the paint finish provides an easily washable and maintainable cladding.

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BEST RETREAT

When two parts create more than a whole

Cheshire Architects devise a spectacular coastal home on Waiheke that carefully balances enclosure and sociability.

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TEXT Jo Bates P H OTO G R A P H Y Sam Hartnett

A serpentine stone wall reaches out of the western arrival point and climbs onto a knoll, dividing the home’s public and private spaces.

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Above The blade-slim roof sits canopy-like atop stone at the home’s entry. The wall holds the full expanse of view at bay until you enter the glass pavilion.

Right ‘MC10 Clerici’ chair by Konstantin Grcic for Mattiazzi on the morning terrace.

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“For them to come to us and want to build a house of this stature, but for it to only have two bedrooms, is quite profound...”

The design for this home came with a brief to ‘entertain 30 guests but sleep none’. The owners, whose professional life is deeply immersed in Auckland hospitality, wanted a respite – a place where they could immediately relax and switch off.

The couple work with architects on their restaurant projects and were clear on what they liked and enjoyed, but refrained from overlaying the design process with their preconceptions. “They were very generous to us,” says George Gregory, principal at Cheshire Architects and design lead on the project. “For them to come to us and want to build a house of this stature, but for it to only have two bedrooms, is quite profound and everything we’ve wanted to chase. They were very conscious in recognising the way in which they wanted to live.”

The retreat is located on the very eastern end of Waiheke Island on a four-hectare property, much of which cannot be occupied or utilised due to steep contours and bush coverage. The site runs all the way down to the sea, which is rendered largely inaccessible by the typography. The beauty here is spellbinding, the view mesmerising as it plays out across the Hauraki Gulf and extends all the way to Coromandel Peninsula.

On a calm day there’s tranquillity, an immovability to the outlook. On a wild one, everything changes.

The owners bought the property about a decade ago and it came with two modest mudbrick cottages, which were tucked into a sheltered spot on the land.

The family adored the dwellings and holidayed in them for years, and slowly came to understand the site – as well as what they wanted, and where they wanted it

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The stone wall hides the land-facing courtyard, which is sheltered from the sea breeze that kicks up in the afternoon. Cheshire Architects designed the sofa, which was made by Guyco Kitchens & Joinery.

A ‘PP130 Circle Chair’

by Hans J Wegner for PP Mobler on a rug from The Ivy House.

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to be. Where the cottages retreated from the exposed ridgeline to avoid the inevitable sea breeze that kicks up in the afternoon, their new home’s site is in its path.

The foremost challenge for the architects was to design for shelter from the elements. The building needed to lie low and be part of the landscape, not appear as if it had landed overnight. The other challenge was to design for the spectacular view, yet provide retreat – a task as confounding as if Thoreau’s cabin in the woods started having notions about the Farnsworth house. There were many iterations before the architects and clients were satisfied with the approved plan. And while the architects felt strongly about it, they couldn’t leave the plan alone. “One day we went back to them and said, ‘We can’t let you build this, we think we have an even richer version. Can we ask that you take a look?’” says Gregory.

Ultimately, the gestural squiggly line on the page paid true here, devising a stone wall that drove the final

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plan forward. It feels organic at the outset, mimicking the gently winding gravel road that leads to the house.

In an elegant, serpentine manoeuvre, the wall reaches out of the western arrival point and climbs onto the knoll, holding the view back as long as possible.

The wall bifurcates the site in two, dividing public from private spaces: bedrooms and bathrooms are tucked inside the wall, dark and low-ceilinged; public spaces exist in a glass pavilion open to the view. There’s danger in building a glass-sided home, of playing up exposure on this prominent site, but the stone’s solidity serves as a foil. “We needed to introduce friction to justify that space,” says Gregory. “We needed to offer opposites that didn’t feel uncomfortable.”

You retreat into private spaces via slim, deep slip-throughs, reading the stone as you go. There’s sanctuary in waking up within the acoustically quiet bedroom, held within the safety of its limestone embrace, then leading into the light-filled pavilion.

Previous page The mesmerising view wraps the living pavilion, where morning light is soft on the stone. Cheshire Architects designed the dining table, which was made by Guyco.

The ‘DC10’ dining chairs are by Inoda+Sveje for Miyazaki Chair Factory.

The ‘Lightwood’ bar stools are by Jasper Morrison from Maruni.

Right Light in the bathrooms is controlled via limited apertures.

Right, below The brass-lined oculus in the slate-lined shower is the only reference to the outside.

Below The bedroom, which is lined with narrow timber boards, is reached through a slim opening in the stone wall. To retreat here is to access a place of quiet and calm.

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Left The narrow passage to the bedroom frames the view over the Gulf.

Right Dawn breaks and light slips subtly into the living pavilion.

Below The framed view from the bath.

The blade-slim, tent-like roof structure sits low and discreet in the landscape. It’s an elegant compliment to the glass pavilion; its operable doors opening on all three sides to butterfly beneath the blade. The doors open flush to the lawn and extend the depth of the threshold, providing shelter. Inside feels outside, yet by traversing the threshold to the lawn and treading on land, there’s a sense that the spell this magical view weaves might be broken.

As an escape from the city, the place needed to feel calm and convey permanence, which is achieved through material richness. There’s not a piece of plasterboard in sight. The wall and floors are Te Kuiti limestone (Cheshire deemed the local stone “too chattery, bright and saturated”), spotted gum lines the cabinetry, walls and ceiling – natural materials that will improve over time. “You couldn’t have a synthetic material in that environment,” says Gregory. “You want to retreat to the analogue when you leave full-noise work.”

The spotted gum is scaled to fit the human hand and the fire hearth boulder is large enough to sit on; its size lending a sense of being connected with a dry river bed. Slate lines the shower room, where you bathe beneath a brass-lined oculus to the sky.

At less than 200 square metres, which includes outdoor terracing, this is not a large house. There’s investment in quality materials within a modest footprint in a retreat that took two years to build.

“Building is not easy,” says Gregory, “and credit to the owners for doing something as emotionally and financially tough as that.”

And to the architects’ credit, the owners have spent much more time at the retreat than they expected, and are now thinking they might move there full-time. It’s not hard to see why.

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Design notebook

Q&A with George Gregory of Cheshire Architects

What were the most technically challenging aspects of the project?

In many ways we had a perfect scenario – clients who were open and ready to have their brief challenged, an unparalleled site, and we had seriously good builders.

This placed a bit of emphasis on the architects getting the bloody thing right.

Pip [Cheshire] has this wonderful analogy about Ferrari: they have every resource available to them to ensure that every bit of weakness is squeezed out of their products through countless iterations of prototyping. Us, mere designers and builders, are expected to hand the keys over to our clients, without even a test drive, having that home function perfectly.

I think creating a home that stacked up and made sure it took full advantage of those inputs was the most challenging part. And it’s not just our challenge, it’s universal. We had all of the right ingredients. There were no excuses. No place for us to hide. It had to be right.

You’ve spent a lot of time on this project, what do you most enjoy about it? It’s probably not one thing but the agglomeration of a few. The house has this lovely calming effect. It’s really quiet out there. It’s a wonderful place to hole up, away from the city.

Talk us through the plan iterations.

Was the final one similar to the first?

There were a couple of iterations. I think our clients agreed to proceed with number 28. The wonderful thing about design is that it’s endless and even though we had their agreement, we continued exploring the plan after hours. One evening Pip walked past while Nat and I were grappling with it. He broke what we were doing in half and offset the parts alongside each other and it nailed everything. Our clients were stunned we would undo what they had already authorised, and they delighted in the transformation. It was a good lesson in resting at nothing until the best version exists.

The owners enjoy the retreat so much, they are considering moving here. How do you think it will work as a permanent home? I think the home is a wonderful example of living well. Not just because of its amenities or its layering of material but for the simple things Kiwi living embraces so well: good light, intelligent use of space, volume and enclosure, landscape or cityscape. It’s those things, I think, that add up to living well. Those things are made more potent by being located out on the back end of an island.

So if the clients chose to give up that urban life, then yes, I think they would do very well out there.

1. Entry 2. Living 3. Pool 4. Kitchen/dining 5. Terrace 6. Powder room 7. En suite 8. Bedroom 9. Bunkroom 10. Retreat 11. Shower room 12. Scullery

Previous page At less than 200 square metres, which includes outdoor terracing, this is not a large house.

Top A seat is carved into the bench in the bathroom.

Above Subtle light in a work space behind a kitchen cabinet.

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BEST COLOUR & DETAIL

There’s no such thing as simple

On a small footprint, Pac Studio designs a family crib that conjures remoteness amid encroaching suburbia in WÄ naka.

TEXT Matt Philp P H OTO G R A P H Y Simon Devitt

The house is composed of two 45-degree gables and a chisel roof; forms that slide past each other to create three courtyards.

Dark graduated weatherboards and green corrugated steel evoke traditional rural sheds, with contemporary twists in the shape of razorsharp roof edges and pop-out windows with mustard-yellow trims.

Twenty years ago, Katrina Toovey and Kim Ma’ia’i bought land beside historic Wānaka Station Park, two minutes drive from the centre of Wānaka , and had plans drawn up for a crib. Then, all of a sudden, nothing happened. The proposed house seemed “too big and silly” – Toovey’s words – so they bought a crib at Ohau for their growing family and let Wānaka lie.

“We planted a hedge instead,” says Toovey.

In 2018, the Dunedin couple – she owns the Māori Hill eatery No 7 Balmac and Italian restaurant the Esplanade at St Clair, he’s a GP – bit the bullet and briefed Auckland-based Pac Studio and Steven Lloyd Architecture to design a low-key crib to share with their three grown-up children. They wanted weatherboards and a traditional pitched roof, a kitchen like the one they had at Ohau with open shelving and a sightline to the living area. They’d also admired a house the architects had done at Pt Wells, north of Auckland, which, although large and elaborate, had evoked something of the cedar-clad cabin they envisaged.

In one sense at least, the cabin idea suited the setting, a field bordered by a long avenue of linden trees planted in the 19th century at the entrance to Wānaka Station, with a backdrop of Douglas firs, redwoods and ash trees. But in the two decades since they bought the property, Toovey and Ma’ia’i’s block of former farmland had acquired neighbours, including a new housing development across the road. The architects would have to conjure remoteness from amid Wānaka suburbia. Their other challenge, given the proximity of all those large trees, was how to maximise sun.

The house they’ve created achieves both, and more. Elevated on a man-made rise close to the sunnier, street-side edge of the property, it’s composed of a pair of 45-degree gables and a chisel roof that slide past each another to create three enclosed courtyards. Dark graduated weatherboards and green corrugated steel evoke traditional rural sheds, but with a contemporary twist in the shape of razor-sharp roof edges and a pop-out window on the northern elevation.

The key move is the half-chisel roof that forms the bunkroom. As well as enclosing the southern terrace, it presents a blank façade to the street and gives the building presence and height. A floating boardwalk extending from under its eaves provides access.

“Houses are a bit like ships,” says Steven Lloyd of this pier-like entrance. “We’ve dragged the boardwalk into the space where pedestrians and vehicles collect, so that the journey starts well outside the building and draws you in.”

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“Part of this project was about intensifying the beauty of nature into courtyard spaces and about controlling exactly what you see in the building.�

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Left The chimney and brick-lined fireplace towers over the edge of the fireplace.

Right Rory Kofoed at the window seat in the living area.

Similarly, the charm of the setting isn’t revealed until you’re into the kitchen or adjacent living room, both of which open onto the northern courtyard. Aaron Paterson of Pac Studio describes the three courtyards as having distinctive characters: the one beside the kitchen is a working space; the eastern patio, semi-enclosed by a row of espaliered quince, provides access to the bunkroom and an outlook for the main bedroom.

The northern courtyard is the entertaining hub, bounded by a fireplace with a towering wedge of a chimney, its schist crazy paving blurring into the field beyond. “It sort of bleeds into that long view,” says Paterson.

One thing you don’t see much of is the neighbourhood. A triangular window set high in the kitchen looks skywards to a nearby peak, and it’s mirrored at the far end of the house by a perfectly framed linden tree. Other windows look back into courtyards.

“It seems like it’s in some remote place, rather than the township of Wānaka ,” says Paterson. “Part of this project was about intensifying the beauty of nature into courtyard spaces and about controlling exactly what you see in the building. We spent a lot of time thinking about windows, about where trees will be in the future. It’s one of the first projects where we really took charge of the landscape.”

The interior maintains the cabin theme. Walls are clad in variously toned meranti ply, the ceiling is planked in silver beech and the joinery is larch.

As well, rimu boards from an Earnscleugh school house line the window seat and kauri from one of Toovey’s former restaurants has been used to finish the kitchen cupboards and drawers.

“Kim had collected all this native timber that he wanted to re-purpose in the house, so we took our cue from that,” says Pac Studio’s Liz Tjahjana. “We also enjoy the efficiency of plywood and it creates beautiful warmth. Kim and Katrina liked the idea of this almost rusticated, put-together look.”

It’s a simple house. No en suites. No wardrobes.

Beautifully crafted, but with almost no ornamentation.

Soon after it was completed, Toovey spent a week at the crib with a couple of friends, one of whom is a curator.

“We carted up a whole lot of art and I ended up taking it all home again,” she says.

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Walls are clad in meranti ply, the ceiling in silver birch and the joinery is larch. A ‘Beat’ pendant

by Tom Dixon hangs above the dining table.

Other kitchen lighting is from Inlite.

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Left A patchwork of plywood at the entrance.

Below The crib wouldn’t be a crib without a bunk room.

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It’s also just 150 square metres. Thanks to the high ceilings and the room-like courtyards it feels larger, and can comfortably sleep a dozen with the bunkroom and loft space pressed into service.

Yet despite the simplicity and scale, there’s plenty going on here. Partway along the corridor the ceiling drops, then rises to its original height – compression and release. There are crosswise views between rooms.

Sunlight moves through the house in beguiling ways, and in the evening the place becomes moody and intimate.

“We didn’t want anything fancy,” says Toovey, of their brief to the architects. Mission achieved: they got something special instead.

Above The Chesterfield is covered in repurposed leather; the ‘Tappeti d’ Oriente’ rug is from Mordakhai in Bologna. A survey map of Savai’i from 1900 sits on a shelf to the left of ‘Cheminees Philippe’ fireplace. A black-andwhite photo by Marti Friedlander hangs at the entrance to the living room.

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Left and below Triangles frame views to the sky and trees, adding to a sense of aspect throughout the 150-square-metre crib.

Right The bunkroom is housed in the chisel-roof building.

Following page Architect Aaron Paterson describes the home’s three courtyards as having distinctive characters – the northern courtyard, where Katrina Toovey and Billie sit, is the entertaining hub.

Design journey Best Colour & Detail with Dulux Q&A with Pac Studio and Steven Lloyd of Steven Lloyd Architecture

This is a beautifully crafted piece of architecture. What are your favourite architectural moments in the house? aaron paterson, pac studio The devil is in the detail; some parts of the house may appear simple but are frustratingly hard to achieve. One of my favourite moments is the asymmetrical gable vent that uses the gaps in the weatherboards to allow airflow but can be shut with a panel.

There are many subtle details through the house, like the timber bunk ladder and the razor-thin edge of the angular concrete cooking fire. The razor-thin fascia and graduated boards make a striking façade.

The composition of the south elevation makes me happy, and we laboured the relationship between entry boardwalk, the blank corrugated iron wall of the chisel roof and espalier fence.

How do design and materials deal with the region’s climate? steven lloyd, steven lloyd architecture By design, the orientation of the house captures the low winter sun, away from the shadows cast by the boulevard of European lime trees [linden trees] to the east. Large north-facing openings allow the sun to heat the concrete thermal-mass floors. High-level gable vent openings

and skylights provide natural cross ventilation to cool the house in summer.

Potential snow loading to the gutters has been avoided by elevated tray inserts.

By construction, high thermal-resistant insulation and an internal airtightness barrier is used behind the linings to prevent condensation within the frame construction. The walls and roof have cavities behind for air movement and dryness.

What feedback have the owners shared with you on their new crib? liz tjahjana, pac studio The kitchen is the heart of the house when designing for a restaurateur and food lovers. Our brief was for a place to relax and focus on the social side of food, where cooking and dining become a culinary performance connected to the landscape. The client loves how the kitchen anchors the house and contains many details of significance to them, including the kauri timber drawers and tiles from their former restaurant. They love the intimacy of the living spaces, while comfortably sleeping 10 people. It is lovely to see Kim and Katrina in a house they were so engaged in the process of making.

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The house is airtight with insulation and a vapour barrier and needs to breathe in a controlled manner. The gable-end vent in the lounge works with natural convection for air flow and cooling in summer. A concealed inward-opening panel seals the hatch. The approach combines contemporary building science and considered detailing. The cadence of the weatherboards conceal the vent at the exterior.

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6. Bathroom 7. Bedroom 8. Bunkroom 9. Shed 10. Laundry 11. Ladder to loft

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Left Under construction – the south elevation shows the installation of the graduated weatherboards and the high-level triangle window.

Right A sketch and diagram of the crib; the latter shows the three components of the design: roofs slipping trans-currently past one another; architectural elements enclosing three courtyards; the site podium lifting the crib out of the grass.

Below Dulux ‘Soft Amber’ accentuates the window box outside the living room.

Dulux is proud to present the Best Colour & Detail award for 2020, celebrating craft and inspiring the design journey from start to finish.

FINALIST

Carving a house from memory

Belinda George cuts a retreat from a perfect arc to embrace a treasured piece of coastal land in Northland.

TEXT Jo Bates P H OTO G R A P H Y Simon Devitt

The carefully crafted design and build faces a piece of native bush that the owner has held dear since childhood. The home is located near Matapouri, on a former farm that is being regenerated to native bush.

Left The retreat is at home within the landscape. Establishing the correct position and level were key to ensuring the house felt secured in the site, not perched on its edge.

Below The curve brings rich interior detail into the ceiling, which is lined in Meranti ply with cedar battens.

Memories enrich a home but rarely do they have the presence to influence a design. Tom Bowden grew up on a unique piece of land on the east coast of Northland with his five siblings, revelling in the freedom afforded by the 108-hectare farm that runs along three kilometres of cliffs near Matapouri. But freedom doesn’t always mean easy.

Tom’s father Bernard died when the children were young, widowing his wife Katharine at 51. Not long afterwards, Katharine returned to her career in medicine and supported the family as a GP. From her Ngunguru base, she served the larger community, which extended north to Tutukaka, Matapouri and Sandy Bay. She proved a formidable force in a time when society preferred ladies to quietly and figuratively decorate walls.

The Bowden sisters are just as compelling and staged an intervention of sorts when Tom circulated plans for the holiday home he had initially commissioned for the site. While the plans were an appropriate response to Tom’s brief, his sisters felt the spectacular cliff-top location required a deeply considered approach. They urged their brother to realise a design that would honour this piece of land and all the memories it holds.

So Bowden contacted architect Belinda George.

The two had first worked together 20-odd years before on a commercial project, and have subsequently completed various projects on Tom’s historic home in Parnell, Auckland.

The family ran the land as a farm for decades, until they realised it didn’t actually make good farmland.

Eventually, they decided to return the majority of land to its roots – native bush. They subdivided the property, providing each of the six Bowdens a site, and sold a handful of others to fund the property’s regeneration to native bush, which is protected under covenanted QE11 Trust title. There’s an onsite

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Above, left and right The design challenge was to emotionally engage with the dramatic clifftop setting, while also embedding the house within the site.

“If I could even slightly skew the architecture towards bringing back those memories, I was going to have a go.�

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Above The main bedroom has a tallboy that architect Belinda George designed in collaboration with her husband, cabinetmaker David White. Made with matai of two different tones, it carries on the home’s curved lines in the dark inlaid handles and rounded edges. The timber was retrieved from a Northland river

by New Zealand Native Riverwood. The ‘Bloom’ pendant is by Tim Rundle for Resident.

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nursery and over the past six years, the Bowden family has overseen the planting of around 70,000 native seedlings, with 300,000 more to be planted over the next 15 years. A number of kiwi have recently been released on the property and at night, Tom has delighted in the sound of them calling each other.

Tom’s house is located on the southern boundary of the property. It’s here he feels most connected to those early years and a piece of bush that forms a bowl, where he and his siblings would rip down the hill on nikau palms, filling their lungs, then tearing up the tranquillity with their delight.

George was enchanted by Tom’s childhood stories and emotional connection to the site. “It’s not often that you get a client with such a long history with the land,” she says. “If I could even slightly skew the architecture towards bringing back those memories,

Above The bedrooms are accessed off the covered deck, which also serves as the home’s entry point.

Right The vanity in the guest bathroom is topped with ‘Braziliano’ granite from Trendstone.

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Furniture in the living area is from Domo.

The ‘Bloom’ pendant is by Tim Rundle for Resident. The ‘Motu’ outdoor furniture is from Dawson & Co.

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I was going to have a go.” Her response, a curved design from a perfect circle, was intuitive and almost immediate. And the response from Tom was an immediate yes. The home embraces the bush view and creates a focal point for social gatherings where more memories will be made. This is predominantly a summer place, where Tom accommodates friends and family, including his three adult children. But it’s not a big house – in fact, at 235 square metres to 162 square metres, there’s more deck than house. Unless you’ve retreated to your bedroom, you occupy indoor and outdoor living areas, which – without nooks and crannies – encourage engagement.

The curved form imbues comfort, an enveloping intimacy on a site with a cliff edge that plummets to a rocky end. As the curve peels away from the cliff, the house anchors back into the land. Establishing the correct level on the site was key to feeling secured within the landscape, not perched on its edge. In activating an emotional response to the site, George had a fine balance to orchestrate – to provide the advantages of safely enjoying that view, yet still feeling engaged by the drama of the cliff.

The sensational ocean view is intrinsically New Zealand, but the house doesn’t bow to this. “I felt that the sea will always be there, it will always be dramatic,” says George. “It’s there in its own right and I only had to strategically place some windows to it.”

Arrival at the home follows the inner embrace of the curve, which contains the private spaces. Walking past the series of bedrooms generates the sense of intimacy you get in a campground – there’s connection with containment. The deck opens up to a courtyard with a large fireplace, then the plan culminates in the living area and sea view. A slim deck fans the coastal side of the living area where, just beyond a bit of lawn, the cliff drops away. The outer edge of the curve of the house contains the service area, including battery storage for the solar array that sits behind the off-grid house.

As well as sensual beauty, there are complexities in curves. Every piece of garapa decking board has been tapered to fit, some of it steam bent. The copper flashing over the roof shingles went on piece by piece and, of course, the guttering is curved. But where George anticipated issues, there weren’t. With a highly skilled team from Peter Brown Builders on board, potentially tricky details were easily resolved. “The builders were incredible and embraced the project with enthusiasm.

They were amazing at figuring out easy solutions where there could’ve been difficulties,” says George.

The home is in a world of its own. The surrounding area might be pocked with the variable quality of architecture that typically lines New Zealand’s coast, but Tom Bowden’s home is a place of beauty. On a summer’s day, the roof shingles shimmer like fish scales, the cicadas outperform the kererū and tui, a painterly blue sea laps the black rocks at the cliff base and a hint of fresh brine drifts up on a breeze through the pōhutukawa. Even a moment spent here is to feel connected.

Opposite George designed the interiors, using colour cues from the surrounding landscape. She also designed the dining table, crafted with totara gifted by Tom’s brother.

It was made by the same furniture maker who made their parents’ dining table 50 years ago. The ‘Fifties’ dining chairs are from Dawson & Co. Solid Iroko fluting wraps the curved kitchen island.

Below A built-in bench seat in the living area.

The fireplace in the background is located in the courtyard between the living area and bedrooms.

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Design notebook

How did you address the focus to the bush, while not completely turning your back on the sea? Tom was always adamant that the bush was the most important aspect, but I said if I don’t give you beautiful windows to the sea you are going to sue me. In the end, he wanted to make the two large windows either side of the fireplace even bigger. I think they do the job of inhabiting the clifftop position – with all the advantages that go with that – yet still anchoring back into the land.

Q&A with Belinda George of Belinda George Architects

You had freedom to work on the interiors.

Tell us about your design. Yes, it’s a privilege to work on the house inside and out, as it strengthens the conceptual ideas. I realise this is not always possible but I enjoy interiors when given the opportunity. The interiors needed to have a robust, casual bach feel, so the timber wall linings and polished concrete floors were an obvious choice. With the focus on native plants, we would have liked to use a sustainable source of native timber but supply wasn’t there at the time so we

used cedar instead. Cabinetry needed the same robust feel so we combined solid Iroko timber fluting with painted MDF to introduce colour. We took the colours from the natural environment – the surrounding bush and sea.

You were also commissioned to design the dining room table. The table is made from totara slabs gifted by Tom’s brother.

Tom asked me to design a table that could be made by the same furniture maker (Albert Smith from Smith and Parker in Whangarei) who had made a puriri table for his mother and father 50 years earlier. Tom took me to see this table at his mother’s home. It’s based on an old monastery design with an ornate cutout slab end and horizontal rails.

These elements formed the basis of the design for this table – I wanted it to be a simplified, contemporary version of the original table, which is still very much in use. I designed a circular cutout, with the same rounded edges as the other furniture, and I hope it will serve Tom’s family for many years to come.

1. Bedroom 2. En suite 3. Laundry 4. Bathroom 5. Verandah 6. Courtyard 7. Kitchen 8. Dining 9. Living

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5 2 Previous page There’s more deck than house in the plan. Decking curves to wrap an outdoor area that’s ideal for large gatherings and celebrations.

Above Plans for the home line the drawer in the tallboy that George designed for the main bedroom.

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FINALIST

A compass in a paddock pointing north

John Irving places a dart in the landscape, where it settles into the typography of a coastal headland in Mangawhai.

TEXT Claire McCall P H OTO G R A P H Y Simon Wilson

From the air, the family retreat could read as an agricultural building.

“It’s a house in a paddock with no distinction, as if the sheep could wander straight in.”

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Right The dart presents sharpness in a bucolic landscape.

Below A deck slips out beneath the roof.

What’s the point of designing a house in the shape of a dart? You may well ask. But when architect John Irving presented his sketch to the owners of this rural property near Mangawhai, north east of Auckland, they didn’t ask. The point was obvious and so was the point. The homonymic reasons were immediately clear from the scale model: the home settled into the typography of a headland like a hand in a glove. “We didn’t design the form to be clever or even overly sculptural. It was a response to the site,” says Irving. And with the prospect of a house to be built due north, the solid ‘tip’ of the dart faces this direction.

Set on a managed working farm and conservation estate, where textured paddocks roll into native bush or drop down to the coast, the house sits quietly on the land. Built as a holiday home for a couple and their young family, seen from afar it could be an agricultural building. It’s organic, unobtrusive and with no trim of garden, the grass grows right up to the walls. “It’s a house in a paddock with no distinction, as if the sheep could wander straight in,” says Irving.

For their part, the owners wanted to maximise the great beauty of the spot: outside in, inside out became the design focus. Arranging four bedrooms and a family living area into a triangular footprint may seem complicated, contrived even, but it was remarkably easy. “Conceptually, we started off with two separate lumps and a gap through the middle.

But it just looked crude,” says Irving. So they joined it all up by paralleling the contours, The Dart being the result.

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Left The light above the island is ‘Running Magnet’ by Flos from ECC. A deep eave gives shelter to the deck off the living area.

Right The view from the entrance.

Right, below The dining table from Vitrine is paired with ‘Ta’ dining chairs from Dawson & Co.

This three-dimensional arrow starts out from an acute angle to the north and widens to 22 metres along the opposite length. There are bedrooms and bathrooms along the south corridor (in the ‘flight’ of the dart), an open living space and kitchen down the barrel, and the main suite with a private deck is tucked into the sharp end.

It may be geometrically off-beat, but not in a showy way: its beauty lies in subtlety. The approach is on foot (there’s no garage) towards the southern elevation – a shed-like form with a gentle gable. A set of floating timber stairs lead down to a front door with an oversize metal frame. When you open the door you see through the volume to the view.

A vertical cedar rainscreen encases the 210-squaremetre dwelling, its driftwood-grey tone blending with the backdrop of shifting ocean. The team at Studio John Irving Architects worked hard on the detail of the cladding. “We tried to keep it visually simple but pushed out some of the window frames for interest and a bit of sun protection.” The window reveals are deep and boxy, the screen crisp, precise – an edge against the sky, and the northern-most board customdesigned as a V to wrap the point.

If this elevation is private and secluded, the glazing ushers in every inch of spectacle to the west and east.

Here, the main living areas are a hole in the whole – with decking both sides for shelter from the wind that inevitably sweeps up the ridge. They lie low, following the topography of the land and bleed off into infinity.

The kitchen is a flexible zone for everyday and social gatherings. At weekends, the family eats breakfast in the morning sun at one end of the six-metre bench and groups around the other in the evenings for dinner. From here, they watch the cows with a sort of mutual curiosity. “They’re pretty nosy,” says one of the owners. “They stand staring at us from the fence-line and drive our little dogs crazy.”

A black-glass splashback reflects the green-blue views of paddock and coast, further melding the spatial experience to the landscape as buffered light shafts in from skylights above. The cabinetry and island facing is the same soft-toned cedar as the exterior.

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Below, left The ‘Raft’ bar stools by Norm architects Kasper Rønn and Jonas BjerrePoulsen for &Tradition are from Dawson & Co.

Opposite Devoid of garden, the home sits quietly in the landscape.

Below, right Off the main bedroom, the triangle at the point of the dart forms a slip of a room in which to dwell.

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The open-sided living area is an exquisite place to hang out in when the sun shimmers off the water, but also exhilarating all closed up when the sky turns moody and the sea tempestuous. But humans are hardwired for security, the physical sense of something solid at their back, so the private deck leading off from the owners’ bedroom is their preferred retreat. It’s here they sit with a book and an occasional glance at the distant Hen and Chickens islands, or come to swing in the hanging chair after dark and count the stars. They aren’t the only creatures that favour this intimate, enclosed space. A family of swallows has taken up residence on the east wall. “I don’t have the heart to move them on, even though sometimes they dive-bomb us,” says one of the owners. Irving has a rather more romantic view of the birds. “When you’re sitting in that chair with your feet on the window ledge and a bottle of wine on the go – and the swallows are swooping all around you – it feels like you’re in a Don Binney painting.”

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Left This home sits above the coast on a managed working farm and conservation estate.

Following page The dart points true north.

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Design notebook

Q&A with John Irving of Studio John Irving Architects

On your website you say that you strive to make work that “makes our clients happy”. How does being an architect make you happy? It’s a great feeling to come up with ideas and follow through to reality. Of course it’s a thrill to work on fantasy-house projects, but the best part is the people you meet along the way.

This is a really unusual shape for a house. Did you have any trouble convincing the owners to go for it?

They loved the idea straight away so they were fully in from the get go, which made for a very happy presentation.

What was the trickiest part of working with this shape? The design fell into place, there was no struggle. It was designed very quickly and we built it unchanged from the concept. It was weird.

This was a dream project on a spectacular site with clients who trusted you implicitly. Is there another ‘dream project’ you’d like to do? Whether it’s a project like this which just seemed to happen, or a collaboration, the key is having trust between the client and myself. I’m lucky to have a lot of lovely and trusting clients… Although it would be nice to put a few site visits to Bali or Hawaii down as a business cost. Either would be fine.

The house is approached by road from above – what did this mean for the architecture? It allowed us to have a bit of fun with the arrival as you don’t have any sense of it being a triangle. From this elevation it looks more like a barn. I like the entry door a lot; I stole a Peter Zumthor detail where the door floats in a metal frame and you step up into it. You arrive elevated and descend into the living areas and the view then reveals itself. Old tricks.

1. Entry 2. Laundry 3. Bathroom 4. Bedroom 5. Gallery 6. Kitchen 7. Dining 8. Living 9. Deck 10. En suite

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LAST WORD

My favourite building In honour of our Melburnian Home of the Year 2020 judges, fellow judge Jack McKinney casts an admiring eye over Melbourne’s RMIT Design Hub by Sean Godsell.

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“This is a significant institutional building by Sean Godsell Architects, a small Melbourne practice known for their highly controlled residential work, which makes this quite an achievement.

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The building is finely scaled at street level, in a way that relates to

the detailed scale of the adjacent heritage buildings. It’s mysterious – the layering of the façade and the pivoting of some of the circular elements create interesting effects of light and shade.

The repetitive decorative circular motif brings to mind the discs that Paco Rabanne used in his work. Here, Godsell has designed glass discs that are encased in steel rings and work as a clever shading device over a double-glazed inner skin.

The building is obsessively rational and extremely repetitive in its appearance, but is far from being dull as a result. As an urban object, it manages to be singular and abstract.”

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