'Architecture works well when it makes life better, it can bring comfort, ease and joy into your life'
'Architecture works well when it makes life better, it can bring comfort, ease and joy into your life'
Brown House, Lake Ohau
Ohau / 2009
Lake Ohau, Waitaki, Canterbury
Home New Zealand June/July 2010
A new house, a tiny form in an incredibly expansive and wild landscape.
The house was built to a very tight budget by a couple with the incredible commitment to live in the centre of the South Island, and build their own holiday home.
The design responds to the dramatic, barely-touched landscape. It is about the beauty we find in the raw: the rugged truth of nature and natural materials.
It picks up on the simple rural architecture of the outlying area - it is chalet but it’s almost a shed.
The focus is on the simple things: the pleasure of a showering in a stone clad room with a beautiful view of the Southern Alps, and the comfort of being curled up in a warm window seat watching the snow fall. At its heart, the project is about generosity and hospitality. It was designed carefully to host a large group of skiers and friends in comfort, without blowing the budget.
This project is a perfect example of the value of the craft and graft of building. It’s a great example of how value is often about more than just the budget.
It is was available to rent. Sadly the Brown House was destroyed by fires. It will be rebuilt!