Clifton Hill House, Christchurch
By Herriot Melhuish O'Neill Architects Ltd
Originally designed in the early 1960s by Austrian Architect Ernst A Kalnins with Swiss-qualified consulting engineers, Schmidli and Pfenniger, Herriot + Melhuish Architecture were commissioned to partly refurbish and reinterpret the house interior. Separate vehicle storage, a workshop and connecting outdoor spaces were added to convert this house into a contemporary family residence.
Our interventions to the internal plan focused on the opportunities created by reinterpretation of circulation. A clear hierarchy of external forms allows the original house to maintain a singularity of form. The overall composition is very much an extension of the hill topography and strongly retains the original sixties aesthetic.
Careful attention was given to providing a warm, crafted interior, combined with the refurbishment of some of the original design elements including an elegant suspended timber staircase. A restrained palette of materials including Blackwood and Tasmanian Ash veneer, gypsum plaster, paint lacquer and natural black mild steel provide definition of spaces.
Photography by Russell Kleyn.
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Clifton Hill House, Christchurch
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Herriot Melhuish O'Neill Architects Ltd
About the
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Herriot Melhuish O’Neill Architects is an NZIA award-winning practice with studios in Wellington, Christchurch, Auckland and Tauranga. Established in 1997, our rich portfolio of commercial and residential work demonstrates a strong commitment to creating beautifully-crafted architecture that enhances the lives of those who experience our buildings – both inside and out.
We believe that enduring architecture is a delicate balance of factors – our clients’ needs and aspirations, our professional training and expertise, the history and nature of the site – but also intuition and commonsense. Every design decision, from materials to how the building complements the landscape, matters to us and adds to the experiential qualities of our projects.
Directors Max Herriot and John Melhuish in Wellington, Duval O'Neill in Christchurch and Matt Pearson in Auckland are committed to the best architectural design practices. HMOA Associate and registered architect Jenny Duck runs the Tauranga studio.
As well as new homes and house renovations, we have experience in the education, recreation, heritage, health and hospitality sectors, office interiors, multi-unit developments, civil projects and master-planning.
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