By Johnstone Callaghan Architects
The client’s brief was for a retreat for themselves on their site to complement their home. The site was selected due to its elevated outlook across the Omihi Valley and neighbouring Black Estate Winery. There was a strong desire for the project to not have to require a building consent, for it to be cost effective and to reference traditional farm buildings and ‘DOC’ huts.
Russell’s Cabins are named after the late Russell Black who founded Black Estate winery planting the first vines in 1993. The design response was to construct three separate near-identical huts but each with their own character. The huts have a consistent form, structure and materiality, but the differences are their curated location on the site, orientation of picture windows and clerestory glazing, connection to adjoining decks and their elevation and relationship to each other on the site to provide close connection but retain privacy.
Johnstone Callaghan Architects is an award-winning studio based in Ōtautahi Christchurch and working across Aotearoa New Zealand.
The design led studio, formed in 2019 by Prue Johnstone and Mike Callaghan, has since expanded to a small team of architects and designers who specialise in, and are passionate about creating residential and commercial spaces with functionality and detail in mind.
Every project is an opportunity to design simple, considered spaces to be enjoyed, celebrated, and lived in for generations beyond our own. Our aim is to deliver responsive architecture to great clients and have fun doing it.
Johnstone Callaghan Architects have received an impressive array of local and national architecture and design awards since their inception from Te Kāhui Whaihanga NZ Institute of Architects, Designers Institute of New Zealand ‘Best Awards’ and the national ‘Interior Awards’ programme.
Johnstone Callaghan Architects have also been published in a book ‘Small Holiday Homes’, and architecture magazines including ‘Here’ and ‘Green Magazine’ in Australia.
Find more information about Johnstone Callaghan Architects here.
Johnstone Callaghan Architects is a Te Kāhui Whaihanga NZ Institute of Architects Registered Practice.