Garden House

This is a new home for a professional couple moving into retirement. High priority has been given to accessibility and live-ability within the house and to its relationship with the developing gardens. The clients have a long history with the property, having owned the land and lived and worked on the adjacent site for the past 25+ years. They are avid gardeners and the site had formed part of the extensive gardens they have tended over the last quarter century. The design response respects this heritage and conceptually plays with the tensions of solid and void, arranged beneath a sheltering draped roof. Integrating principles of sustainability and accessibility, the home aims to allow the clients to mitigate health challenges and maintain their independence and a high quality of life for as long as possible. Two stained cedar clad building blocks defining public (kitchen, dining, living spaces) & private (bedrooms & service spaces) are linked by a voluminous ‘Garden Room’. Lining treatments emphasise the ambiguity of this indoor-outdoor space and connections to the garden and landscape. The cedar lined roof plane is “draped” over the whole, unifying the timber blocks, garden room and terrace spaces. Read NZHerald article which was sponsored by Master Builders, Auckland House of the Year winners announced