With a outlook to the harbour and cloaked in native bush, this house is intentionally designed for quiet and calm, catering for the special needs of this Tauranga family.
Complex. That’s a word that fits this property in multiple ways. First, in terms of the triangular piece of land, which was also geotechnically challenging. “Only an architect would be stupid enough to buy the site,” is the way homeowner Steven Chambers of Stufkens + Chambers Architects describes it. Then, when it comes to the layout, the dwelling forms a little ‘complex’ of two self-contained buildings, connected by a fire door. Finally, it’s relevant to the family’s requirements: with two neurodiverse children to consider, the design had to respond to some rather complex needs.
Steven and his wife, Clair Herron, purchased the 645sqm Ōtūmoetai section six years ago. Although it was steep and awkwardly shaped, it was blessed with plenty of native bush and an aspect of Tauranga Harbour from the pointy end of the triangle. The peacefulness of the place was a decisive factor. “We’d been living in a 1950s stucco cottage on an airport flight path, next to a main road,” he explains. “The noise wasn’t ideal for dealing with children with fetal alcohol syndrome and on the autism spectrum. We wanted to move somewhere quieter.”
As an architect, Steven was excited by the opportunity to design a home for his family. He made environmental responsibility a cornerstone, centred on a smaller footprint and being a true waste warrior. But sober issues of sustainability are not the thoughts that come to mind when you first view the 150sqm house. It’s playful and intriguing.
Set back into the larger part of the wedge, its cheerful character embraces two angular forms in red, within a green backdrop. “We planted out the property before we constructed the house, but left the builders about a metre perimeter for their scaffold,” explains Steven.
The colour and the corrugated cladding were inspired by history. The house lies on the original farm track carved out of the land in the 1920s and the scoria red, while evocative of rural sheds, also references the connection to Papatūānuku: the land and her nourishment of those upon it.
From the entrance, the home appears as two distinct buildings: the primary dwelling and a secondary unit, with kitchenette, bathroom and loft bedroom. In the short term, this is used as a play area, but in the future it could become a space for one of the kids to live semi-independently. “The children named ‘their’ house Gary,” explains Steven. “It’s a little confusing for visitors when they never get to meet him.”
Corrugated sheet rejected from a project Steven had worked on many years ago forms the roof of an entry walkway that traverses a courtyard, decorated with festoon lights. Step inside and the main house is a crafted timber box with the fragrance of the forest, courtesy of the Lawson’s cypress which lines the walls and the floors. “Apart from the fact that it’s a type of timber that doesn’t need treatment, which limits chemical exposure, we also learnt through our research on neurodiversity that a connection with wood can lower heart rates and be more calming,” says Steven.
A lovely lightness of being infuses the open-plan spaces, where exposed rafters above the living room set up a rhythm taken up a note by the zig-zag of an open-tread stair. Borrowed views of the neighbours’ pōhutukawa flood in, and indoor plants populate the corners, nooks and crannies — from cacti that lap up the sun in the living room to monkey mask that trails down the metal stairwell screen and potted black taro thriving on the kitchen bench. This galley-style bench has been given a trim — a result of Steven’s commitment to minimising waste. Although it was designed to line up on an axis that leads from the internal courtyard across the bench to the stairwell and on past the threshold to a boardwalk that terminates at the scenic end of the site, it needed to be altered due to a change of measurement from one of the suppliers. Instead of asking for a re-supply, Steven duly put pencil to paper and shaved 100mm off the bench. “It meant the floating stairs couldn’t align perfectly with the bench, but I adjusted and celebrated it,” he says.
It’s not something visitors to the house would notice. They are far more likely to drink in the aroma and warmth of the timber elements or to explore the courtyard that leads off the kitchen. Bounded by a retaining wall, a living wall and the two-storey block, it has a sense of verticality. “It’s east facing so it gets lovely shade on a summer evening.”
Upstairs, a hallway painted grey-blue is a quietening shade for this zone, helping the couple’s daughter Hailen and son Silas to transition from a busy day at bedtime. Serene green mosaics in their bathroom have a similar effect.
While outdoor living was not a priority, there’s sublimity in the ever-present connection to landscape. A low window at the top of the stairs is a cause to pause and look. The ensuite has no screening on the glazing, just a view of a voluptuous walnut tree. And it is possible from the bathroom to catch a glimpse of the harbour.
In the living room, a sliding door opens not to a deck, but directly to the garden, where harakeke and lomandra brush up against the corrugate. Sitting here, legs dangling out of the building, feels like a very urban suburban adventure.
Words Claire McCall
Photography James & Robert Hunter
The post Among native bush a Tauranga family home responds with quiet and care appeared first on homestyle magazine.
