10x10 House: a small home with big ideas by Dorset Construction

This box-shaped home on the side of a Wellington hill is the perfect combination of family living with playful, architectural details.

A collaboration between Dorset Construction and Patchwork Architecture, the exterior of this home tends towards the experimental. It’s balanced atop a rocky outcrop in Wellington’s Kilbirnie; an awkward site on a busy road. But after having previously worked together to bring projects such as Stealth Bomber to life, the team knew they were up for the challenge.

“I was looking at all these amazing things we were building and I thought, ‘Why can’t we have that?’ And the answer was that, well, we could,” says Adam Pierson of Dorset Construction.

“My wife and I sold our house and bought some land and that's how 10x10 came about.”

The site was small and difficult, says Patchwork Architecture’s Ben Mitchell-Anyon and Sally Ogle, but from a compliance point of view it had some advantages. A wide road frontage and few neighbours meant the planning regulation constraints were slightly less onerous. Plus it was close to the city, and had a nice outlook.

“We didn't actually know whether we were going to get great views or not,” says Adam. “We climbed up and tried to see but it was so thick with bush. The quality of the views that we got far exceeded what we were expecting.”

The constraints of the site and the goal to find some views and the sun all generated the shape. But the real surprise is not the unconventional exterior, but that it holds a simple, casual and comfortable family home.

Three bedrooms and all of the living areas are on one level, making family living easy with plenty of indoor-outdoor connection.

The simplicity comes from the symmetrical square 10m x 10m layout of the main floor. “We play with geometries all the time,” says Ben. “So it's quite satisfying when you can stick to something that has that clarity of a pure shape, and work it out inside like a puzzle.”

With much of the street access given over to a garage and driveway, outdoor space was challenging.

“On a site that had zero flat ground, we carved out terraces and balconies,” says Sally. “And then we thought, let’s create a full roof deck. The higher you get the sunnier it is.”

Access to the roof deck is via external concrete stairs and a yellow metal bridge.

And the fibreglass shelter?

“That’s so you can actually use it,” says Ben. “It's a bit windy. But you can also have a barbecue in it, and there's a sink and power in there. It really makes the rooftop much more useful.”

Adam and wife Alicia certainly hosted a few parties there. “Probably not as many as we would have liked. But when we did it was good,” says Adam.

Another quirky touch is the cladding. “It’s clad in aluminium panels, two millimetre thick panels, which was something we've never tried before,” says Ben. “We did it all in an anodised finish, which picks up the light really beautifully.”

The architecturally complex project – described by Adam as “not for the faint-hearted” – was certainly a personal highlight for Adam as well as a career highlight, having won the NZIA’s 2020 New Zealand Architecture Award for Housing.

“It’s cool to know we’re doing projects that are significant. As soon as I mention our projects to an architect, they know what I’m talking about.”