Triptych is a home for a young family. The brief called for an environmentally conscious, site specific and flexible design, providing a variety of indoor and outdoor living spaces. The home was not to be oversized and be positioned on the complex site to maximise the landscape potential.

The design response was to break the home up into 3 forms, each stepping up and across on the site responding to the topography and other site constraints. This enables all forms of the home to fit within the permitted building envelope without requiring additional consents from neighbours, and to ensure sunlight and outlook to adjacent homes are retained.

Triptych unfolds over 3 levels sitting above the garage plinth, each level offering a sense of reveal and function whilst feeling connected, intimate and spacious. The lower level of each of the 3 stepped forms follow the topography of the site with access to outdoor spaces. The home offers multiple areas for the family to occupy; a large family living room with reading nook, a window seat at the end of the first flight of stairs, a landing space alongside the children’s bedrooms with its use evolving over time to suit the children’s ages and changing needs. The main bedroom and study have an open connection to this area.

Garage is located on the lower level, up to Level 1 with main entry, living, kitchen and dining opening out onto the outdoor living patio and lawn, Level 2 with bedroom opening onto private patio, bathroom and laundry opening onto services area then continues with landing and children’s bedrooms, and Level 3 housing the main bedroom, dressing, ensuite and study.

2023 NZIA Local Award (Canterbury) — Residential, Winner

The challenges of designing a family home, one that is sustainable, responsive and made to budget, are at play in this project. Constraint has served to distil the architect’s response – there is unmistakable clarity of thought here. It’s refreshing to see a new, questioning and considered approach to spatial design. The plan and form – evolved out of architectural memories of the site, and responsive to site – were none-the-less innovative. The judges appreciated the care and thought given to the land, neighbours, family and climate, and acknowledge that the architect’s thinking has value beyond the boundaries of the architectural form itself.