10 New Zealand Homes That’ll Inspire a Trip to the Edge of the Earth
In New Zealand, the dramatic landscapes can capture your imagination. They’ve inspired some to design homes in harmony with the country’s awe-inspiring settings, which photographer Simon Devitt has now captured in a new volume, Cape to Bluff, a collection of 30 homes that include small beach homes, or baches, as they’re known, midcentury-inspired coastal dwellings, and riverside retreats set among gold miners’ cottages.
"It felt like the right time to show an aspirational view of how New Zealand architects respond to the varying nature of our landscape," says Devitt, who produced the book alongside writer Andrea Stevens and graphic designer Luke Scott. "And it’s a contemporary view curated to convey not just different places in New Zealand but also different ways of living."
Each home in the book is carefully chosen to give the reader a view of New Zealand they would never otherwise experience, bringing together architecture, landscape, and photography in one breathtaking volume. Read on for a few of its most impressive homes, brought into vivid focus by Devitt’s facility behind the lens.
Tutukaka House by Belinda George
Curled into a natural amphitheater, this gentle timber house turns to face the sun rather than the sea. Responding to the landform, its simple semicircle creates north-facing spaces sheltered from onshore winds. One corner braves the sea cliff, facing the salt and spray, but most of the house is surrounded by bush and orients toward a small valley, the ocean all the more present for being ignored formally. The site holds vivid childhood memories for its owner, Tom Bowden. His
parents purchased the coastal farm in the 1960s, and he grew up exploring the landscape alongside his five siblings. Forty years later and the Bowden family are returning 90 percent of the farm to native bush. Setting aside a small site for each family member, they sold five lots to fund the reforestation of the remaining 110-hectare estate, all of it protected under the QEII National Trust.
Party Wall House by Patchwork Architecture
Named after the meter-thick cast concrete wall separating mirrored dwellings, Party Wall House traces a clean outline on a bush-clad hillside in Wellington. Answering the brief to reimagine density, Ben Mitchell-Anyon and Sally Ogle of Patchwork Architecture subvert a number of notions about duplex living. A singular roof brings elegance to a two-part project and enables efficiency in siting, retaining existing trees for both outlook and privacy.
"With our designs we like embedding a narrative, another level of engagement," explains architect Ken Crosson, whose designs often evince a playful or subversive element. It was local gold-mining history that lent its narrative to Light Mine House, a beach "bach" at Kūaotunu, on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula. Nestling among the sand dunes and pīngao, a coastal grass, a series of boxes is made unique by the addition of tapering skylights that reach for the sky.
Set in splendid isolation in a small, surf-battered bay on the north coast of Horomaka Banks Peninsula, this rustic style dwelling is luxury accommodation at Annandale, a 4000-hectare beef and sheep farm. The bay is nature in the raw. Seals and penguins frequent the dense kelp beds offshore, whales and dolphins travel the coastline, and piled on the beach are tangles of bleaching driftwood. Faced with such an uncompromising location, architect Andrew Patterson eschewed a modern or abstracted path—which, he reasons, "would have fought the timeless nature of the bay"—in favor of a rural vernacular form, albeit on a monumental scale.
Split House by Studio2 Architects
The 1970s houses of Whangamatā were the design source for this new beach bach—the simple gables, lean-tos, decks and yards. "The clients and I walked the neighborhood to have a look at the existing character," says architect Paul Clarke. "They wanted to build sympathetically in the form and size of the building, so we’ve reused elements we know well, but combined them in a new way to put together something different."
Bivvy House by Vaughn McQuarrie
"Mountain peaks, river valleys and glacial lakes sketch the subalpine landscape of the southern lakes—an environment revered by Jennifer Arnold and Alan Luckie. "It’s the wilderness of it all," notes Jennifer. "That immense space with its diamond sharp air and the ability to engage with all the elements." With a bare site overlooking Lake Wakatipu, they engaged architect Vaughn McQuarrie to design a shelter that would "sing with the music of the sun, wind and rain." They discussed bivvies and huts, thermal efficiency and humble materials, and didn’t need (or necessarily want) the final design to resemble a traditional house."
Ophir House by Nott Architects
In the rugged landscape of Ophir in the Maniatoto, the ground is carpeted in schist and shingle, tussock and thyme; temperatures plunge to sub-zero in winter and rise into the mid-30s in summer. Thermal comfort is key in this environment, and for the creative couple who live here, so was a building that looked like it was of this place. "The site feels lunar," says architect Charlie Nott. "We had to create sanctuary in that hostile environment, and because the clients were designers, they were up for a challenge and highly involved in designing a permanent home and office."
Dune House by Julian Guthrie Architects
At Tara Iti, south of the Mangawhai Heads, a former pine plantation is gradually being restored to native habitat on the windy coastal sand dunes. On a site overlooking the world-renowned golf course is the Dune House, designed by architect Julian Guthrie as a retreat for a family with
four children. The clients had holidayed in Palm Springs, a city noted for golf, midcentury modern design and a California desert climate—all of which factored into the brief for an expansive yet relaxed house at Tara Iti.
Coast House by Stacey Farrell
Down at the bottom of Te Waipounamu, southerlies lash the coast and the crouching mānuka trees, whipping surf into a constant roar, while calmer moments bring peace and spectacular sunsets. This is the liminal zone where architect Stacey Farrell built her getaway crib. The crib is one of around 30 dwellings in Omaui, a tiny coastal settlement set among the scrub and dunes, looking north to Oreti Beach. Having owned the section for years, Stacey and her husband Ben took time to absorb the lay of the land, camping there and climbing trees to calculate the views. Their goal was a two-bedroom home stripped back to bare essentials: low-budget, off-grid, but above all small. "The aim was to keep things low and work with the landscape and hunker down," says Stacey.
Black Quail House by Bergendy Cooke
Connection to place is at the heart of this understated house. It evokes the continuous but evolving human settlement in the Bannockburn area in Central Otago. Here, the rusted remains of gold miners’ cottages dot a stony landscape of old mine tailings along the banks of the Kawerau River. "It’s an intense, exposed landscape," says architect Bergendy Cooke, "and the clients wanted a home that complemented these surroundings." Bergendy’s response was a house embedded in the terrain, offering protection from the harsh environment while refusing to be ostentatious. The low-lying building that emerged will become even less visible over time through the patina of its materials.
Cape to Bluff by Simon Devitt, Luke Scott and Andrea Stevens out now in bookstores and online www.simondevitt.com
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