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Feature | <strong>Magazine</strong> 33<br />
“The stark white exterior is like an eggshell: once inside the colour changes to<br />
warm, natural, yellow ochre shades of the beach and nature, making you feel<br />
comfortable and at home.”<br />
What are some of the key materials, and why did you<br />
choose them?<br />
I’ve described some of the materiality above. Steel support<br />
structure, timber framing, macrocarpa posts and beams,<br />
painted particle board floor; plywood linings; painted<br />
timber rainscreen and trims; concrete block retaining and<br />
landscape walls.<br />
Chosen for both suitability/robustness and appearance,<br />
and cost, and how they could best create the specific<br />
details that make the building and the atmosphere that is<br />
within the building.<br />
Some favourite features/details?<br />
We both love the way it all fits together and supports our<br />
particular lifestyle.<br />
We love the garden courtyard – perennial planting<br />
inspired by the Botanic Gardens’ ‘Herbaceous Border’.<br />
The living spaces and the interior birch ply joinery. The<br />
stairs in the tower.<br />
I am very happy with the elimination of rainwater heads<br />
by taking a scupper through the parapet directly into the<br />
back of an oversized downpipe.<br />
The cleanness of the forms – there are four distinct<br />
elements – and the way they are detailed was very<br />
important to me.<br />
Christchurch has a strong architectural history, did you<br />
draw on this here?<br />
Not really. I wanted to create a really good piece of<br />
architecture that respects that history but doesn’t recreate<br />
it. There are local vernacular references as discussed above.<br />
My formative experience after university was working<br />
with Ian Athfield. Perhaps his collection of white objects<br />
on Wellington’s hillside is deep inside my white boxes.<br />
And perhaps my exposure to Miles Warren’s awesome<br />
detailing when I had my office at 65 Cambridge Terrace<br />
– I believe you have to create really well resolved and<br />
beautiful details to make a building feel alive.
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