It’s not often I walk out my own front door to an interview. This issue it happened twice. Both new builds in Ōtautahi/Christchurch, by people who’d taken a change of pace and built for it. The Port Hills, Moke Valley, Gibbston — there’s fresh thinking happening down here in Te Waipounamu. They all ask the same thing: what shape a house should be, and how much of one you need.
Terry Chu and Iris Ma sat in the pine forest every second day before buying their block. What architects Fearon Hay and designer Katie Lockhart came back with is 80sqm, with no balcony: the living-room corner slides away and the room becomes the deck. Terry wanted it comfortable, but not so comfortable you’d stay inside. See it open up on page 58, then book a night.
In Cashmere, Chris Shaw wanted less space and none of the assumptions that come with it. Her son Geordie and daughter-in-law Emma, of Shaw & Shaw Architects, drew her a house above the family garage, and on page 70 you’ll find what she gained: a door of her own, a way in directly off the street and no space she keeps for best.
Not far away, Summar Connelly and Sam Harrison had a larger house drawn and priced before the numbers stopped making sense. They built 80sqm instead, pink throughout, with interiors by Jess Blair of Forager Studio, and page 84 shows how far they took it.
The Gibbston Valley house on page 96 came the other way round. Lauren Christie and Joseph Coutts put up the guest house first and lived in it with their children while they learned the site, then negotiated the main house’s cabinetry down to no toe-kicks and a negative detail between cupboard and benchtop.
Small pleasures are what got me this issue. A net strung where a balustrade would be. A banquette within talking distance of whoever’s cooking. A bed set at window height, the lake already in view. The limit is what produced the idea.
Alice Lines, Editor
@alice.lines
The post Alice Lines on four southern homes and the limits that made them appeared first on Homestyle.
