Wanaka House

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Located on a spectacular raised spur of land on the slopes of Mt. Barker the house commands stunning western views towards Wanaka and the snow clad mountains beyond. The house sits peacefully on the land to achieve a mostly single storied house with office, wine room and exercise spaces located at the lower level. The house wraps around an internal courtyard providing sheltered outdoor living space when the predominant wind is blowing. The courtyard is punctured with a retractable covered lap pool that cantilevers out above the adjacent sloping hillside. The main house contains the master and guest areas while additional bedrooms are accessed externally via the courtyard above the lap pool. The house has a two car internal accessed garage plus a four car garage space which allows for additional recreational vehicles.

The house acknowledges the regions materials with large areas of schist walls and plastered surfaces all cedar trimmed with extensive use of rustic timber surfaces to external areas. Internally the schist is used extensively around the entry areas in conjunction with tiled flooring which transitions to timber flooring to the formal areas, all simplified with painted gib walls and ceilings. The asymmetrically shaped gabled roofs engender a sense of pavilions joined together with flat roofs.

The house received a Gold medal by the Master Builders Federation for it’s construction and has been featured in the MyTrends magazine