Sensing place: in alpine New Zealand, this house reinterprets the sobriety and simplicity of local rural buildings.New Zealand's Southern Alps form a towering backbone to the long land mass of South Island. At the southern end of the Alps lies Lake Wakatipu, a great Z-shaped slash of water that wraps around a glacial basin on its north edge. Traditionally, the basin has been used for pastoral farming, but more recently, as the alpine region has grown in popularity, large rural landholdings have been subdivided and sold and farm buildings supplanted by individual houses. There are concerns that such cosy domestication domestication Process of hereditary reorganization of wild animals and plants into forms more accommodating to the interests of people. In its strictest sense, it refers to the initial stage of human mastery of wild animals and plants. is undermining the tough, rural character of the landscape, so this new dwelling adopts the vernacular argot ar·got n. A specialized vocabulary or set of idioms used by a particular group: thieves' argot. See Synonyms at dialect. [French. of local farm buildings as opposed to the more conspicuous enunciation enunciation (inun´sēā´sh  n),n an auxiliary function of teeth, particularly those in the anterior sector of the dental arch; the formation of sounds of the trophy house. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The site consists of two flat paddocks bounded on their southern edge by the eroded path of the Shotover River. On three sides are breathtaking vistas of snow-dusted mountain ranges. Clad in a sombre skin of folded, pre-weathered zinc, the house is a set of simple, orthogonal volumes that could, from a distance, be easily taken for some kind of barn or outhouse. The zinc cladding homogenises the building mass and full-height vertical joints set up a basic rhythm for the fenestration fenestration /fen·es·tra·tion/ (fen?es-tra´shun) 1. the act of perforating or condition of being perforated. 2. . As an elemental composition in metal and glass, it has a haiku-like directness. The functional farming/industrial aesthetic is most explicitly articulated on the inscrutable south (non-sunny) side of the house. Here, the zinc skin is at its most impermeable impermeable /im·per·me·a·ble/ (-per´me-ah-b'l) not permitting passage, as of fluid. im·per·me·a·ble adj. Impossible to permeate; not permitting passage. and inscrutable, but to the north (sunny) side the house opens up through a glazed, steel-framed loggia loggia Hall, gallery, or porch open to the air on one or more sides. It evolved in the Mediterranean region as an open sitting room with protection from the sun. It is often a roofed, arcaded open gallery on an upper story overlooking a court, though it can also be a that extends the main living space and frames views northwards to Coronet Peak. A concrete and gravel apron forms a datum The singular form of data; for example, one datum. It is rarely used, and data, its plural form, is commonly used for both singular and plural. for the zinc box and the internal floor level and external terrace are slightly elevated above this anchoring plane. Living room and loggia form the focus of the internal arrangement, with the master bedroom and a generously proportioned library set deferentially def·er·en·tial adj. Marked by or exhibiting deference. def  er·en to one side of this main volume. A pair of secondary bedrooms and a studio are economically hoisted over the void of the adjacent garage, otherwise interiors revel in tall, 3.8m high ceilings to ensure maximum penetration of light and maximum viewing potential of mountain peaks and ridgelines. Conceding to the much greater and grander presence of nature, this is a house that knows its place, in more ways than one. C. S. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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