The entrepreneur Matt Chapman, born in Singapore, looked at many countries when he looked for a place to buy an isolated retreat. “I wanted to find the most magical place,” he says. This place was Parihoa, whose minimal outline and smooth, dark leaf wooden facade are a dramatic contrast to the gentle hills and robust glue of the landscape in which it is located.
It is one of several slim modern architectural projects that are designed in conversation with the striking geography of their New Zealand locations: often deep, the need for isolation and construction in materials that are targeted, but accept the profile of their surroundings. The simplest cribs and Baches – the Kiwi terms for holiday homes – also inspired New Zealand architects to deal with the wilderness in an interesting way in their designs.
Parihoa was built for a family of farmers and was inspired by the traditional attitude of Māori to nature, says Andrew Patterson from Architecture Studio Pattersons, which was behind the project. “In New Zealand, the country's ethos is: we are the children of the sky father and the earth mother [Ranginui and Papatūānuku]. And that comes with a certain responsibility. “
Forty-five minutes from the largest city in the country, Auckland, is located on the adhesive of the west coast and looks at the Tasman Sea. “When the weather rolls off the ocean, you can see how a storm comes before it hits it,” says Patterson. Strong winds and horizontal rain mean that “the visibility sinks to nothing”. But, Chapman adds: “It gets this heavenly sunsets [ . . . ] It's like an alien fortress. “
Similar to the earth's stroll through an old one hit (or away) In view of the house, Parihoa is low along the hilly line and is configured with a central courtyard. The living areas extend along the glass walls in front of the house; Walls that can allow in the weather. The four bedrooms join the courtyard in a series of angles to ensure that a window or a door can be opened regardless of the direction of the wind and the sun (the country has a particularly high ultraviolet light values).
New Zealand is “not stuck in an idea of architecture from another time; It is a country of people who are essentially happy, ”says architect Lance Herbst. However, nod on tradition remains a keystone. At the Great Barrier Island, the outermost island of Hauraki Gulf, Awana Beach House was completed by autumn starchitects for a family of Auckland in 2020. Like many of the designs of Herbsthst-how the award-winning dune house on the east coast of the North Island, the wavy curves of which the sand dunes nearby imitate the building in sliding wrists, which refer to the country's naiah wooden buildings.
The screens consist of untreated cedar, which is constantly being beaten by sea spray, creating a silver -plated effect. “What we always try with these beach houses is essentially the border between the building and the landscape,” says Herbst.
CHAPMAN's destination was also unsuccessful when he started a new project in 2018-a 24-hectare location on the Roys Peninsula, which leads to Lake Wānaka on the South Island. He also wanted to imitate Parihoa's connection to his surroundings. Here the mountains channel strong winds, snow and cloud (Aotearoa, the country's name, translated “land of the long white cloud”). He commissioned Fearon Hay Architects to create synchronicity, which was completed in 2023. In the hills it was made from a mixture of concrete, glass, corrugated iron and aluminum screening. Red Cedar gives warmth inside, while the red cedar cladding slowly absorbs the dusty gray tones of the region's slate.
“You don't see this building from a distance. We have not changed the hierarchy how powerful this peninsula is, ”says architect Tim Hay. “It feels like it hasn't bothered this balance.”
There are two main bedrooms at both ends of the long one -story structure, between a series of living areas, which can be re -configured depending on how many remain. “I like isolation for creativity and able to really get in because a large part of my work was virtually virtually,” says Chapman. “But for the same reason they have to make people get out [to visit]. You have to become a good entertainer. “
Two floor rooms (and a ski drying room and other amenities) are separated from this central building and force the residents outside, similar to the shepherd and hiking huts in the highlands. “This adventurous lifestyle outdoors can run out by ensuring creature comfort,” says architect Jeff Fearon, also from Fearon Hay Architects. “It was exciting to have a customer who was ready to explore this type of solutions.”
The requirements for biodiversity for planning the approval in the event of synchronicity meant that 25,000 native plants were added to the location. Chapman accepted the challenge. “You have a responsibility when it comes to the health of the country and the relationships with other people who combine it,” he says. “I thought it was very humble.”
Chapman, who has become New Zealand, sells synchronicity and Parihoa while setting his portfolio and building a main residence near Wānaka. Again designed by Fearon Hay, it will be a partially underground house called telepathy.
Duncan Ross, Chief Operating Officer from Bayleys Realyt, who, together with the partners McGrath Estate Agents and Knight Frank, lists both properties, says that the houses attract both international buyers and domestic interest. “There are many more activities from offshore parties. It is still very difficult to get access, but there is certainly a desire to have a bolt hole.
“They are stylized to fit into the landscape, but to lift them equally,” says Ross and creates a “feeling of security in this robust environment. When you see them, you really understand it. “
Most foreigners have to go through the Overseas Investment Act to buy real estate. Wānaka and neighboring Queenstown on the South Island are growth regions for international property. On the North Island there are new developments at Te Arai and Tara Iti, Golf Resorts by the sea.
Pattersons recently completed the lens house for a young Australian couple, which was under the dunes of Te Arai. With a view to the reserve of the Little Barrier Island, with a lentil -shaped cloud that almost always hovered, the goal was to create a home without visual disorder, so that the focus is on the sight.
The house has two symmetrical wings and, like dubbing at both ends, has suitable bedrooms (and offices) and a living area in between. It is designed so that different pages can be opened, regardless of the weather. The front and ceiling wall made of glass slides opens almost quietly on pressing a key. “This house expects an age when people are not bound to an office,” says Patterson. It is dressed with firm zinc that does not rust in a coastal environment, but forms a silver patina that resembles the pine forest behind it.
Thomas Sear-Budd from the architectural studio Syear-Budd Ross considers the country's nature adjacent projects as “New Zealand architecture and New Zealand modernism on the map”. Seear-Budd Ross completes the central Otago house, which is a protected courtyard and a tonal appearance (this time with cast concrete) and is surrounded by nature. The house with five bedrooms with a piano room and an area for tea ceremonies is for a family in the USA and Taiwan. “We are enthusiastic to promote New Zealand architecture, even though it is contextual, has an international element,” says co -founder James Ross.
Between them, these architectural studios start projects in other remote areas – the aesthetic “New Zealand” aesthetics to Australia, Asia, the Middle East, the USA, Great Britain and near the Arctic circle.
“There is a higher -level wish if you are in nature, to be one or respectful or in harmony,” says Patterson. “You don't have to design and obtain what went in a certain style. You can go straight to the source, namely the surroundings. “
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