The Canterbury Plains are quite wild in a way, narrow
Southern Alps on one side the sea on the other, tiny ribbon of land.
The house is just outside Ashburton which is a rural services town really.
So the site's a long rectangular northwest
facing piece of land bordered by very tall trees, shelter belts.
Which allowed us to do delay if you like coming to the house a series of outdoor rooms we we designed
trees, orchard, tennis court, hedges, walls, this idea of nothing's available straight away
to you so you have to sort of work your way through through the house out into the garden
and ideally that experience is shared by the owners for the next 30 years that it's not
obvious and that gradually more and more reveals itself as to the experience of living here.
So the house is a symmetrical thing which is unusual these days but something we're very
interested in. So front entry, big long gallery, bedrooms either side and then straightforward
into the main pavilion, big concrete lofted ceiling space where the main living happens.
It's a tough site right and a tough climate so the materials need to respond to that be
durable through time and also durable across the season, so we're dealing with concrete,
timber weatherboards, profile metal roof, profile metal cladding, timber shutters, stone
timber floor, just tough materials doing a tough job.
The country house being an antidote to the townhouse, so what does that mean,
it means the materials are different, how you live here is different,
what convincing looks like, what relaxation looks like,
different level of formality maybe and certainly a different lens on what materials are appropriate.
Well these shutters are really important and we've used them a number of times to break down
this transition between inside and outside which is often too harsh particularly in this climate,
so moving shutters, over moving glass, over a controlled opening in a wall,
recipe of good living really.
The theme of longevity of proportions, of symmetry and just the juxtaposition of
interiors to the exterior facade was the key materiality choice within the home.
Our clients really wanted to embrace New Zealand design throughout their
architectural build and so to talk to that space official Fisher & Paykel is a perfect match.
The architectural context really demanded an honest and tailored approach I felt to
the interior detailing, so we approached the bedroom wings and the detailing of the bathroom
with a real sincerity and just a really reduced palette so we looked towards using travertine
which is a natural stone and being a honed finish lovely and soft and a real sense of calmness.
So a rural setting like this the interior architecture really needs to talk to the needs
and the requirements of that landscape, so for instance rather than just a laundry we developed a
mud room space, somewhere where you could come in ,after a day's journey out in the garden or with
on the landscape and actually refine and refresh yourself before entering into the main pavilion.
We also introduced elements of key storage into the kitchen environment because the supermarket is
just not simply down the road, so key factors of looking at refrigeration, how their food is stored
,whether it's cool or dry and then also just the cellaring process, looking at a wine fridge
being able to be integrated and being refined to fit within the needs of that kitchen space.
So our clients love to entertain and so it was really imperative
that the appliances met the needs of that so from wine, to cooking,
to celebrating the exterior facade in that rural landscape was a real key driving factor.
I'm really proud how the interior actually speaks with the architectural context and
just how the home reads as one was really important to our design directive it just speaks
seamlessly it doesn't look as if we've actually actually been involved from a design approach.
I really loved the kitchen space and just how it sits defined as
a twist of traditional detailing mixed with the contemporary layer.
I think as you get older what's important in a design of a house changes,
you're perhaps less interested in big statement moves, I certainly see the the lovely houses
that Miles Warren designed in the 60s and 70s, beautifully proportioned spaces that are easy
to be in whether you're a group or just a couple and taking that to its current generation and a
future iteration is something that really interests me, this idea of elegant spaces
of good proportions that you're comfortable in that take you through your life and so today's
version of that is what you see and tomorrow's one will be similar probably but will have evolved.