Wright House

Butel Park, to the West of Arrowtown is a residential development intended to comprise houses that reflect the historic Arrowtown Character, identified as being a simple architectural vernacular sitting on large sections completed with extensive gardens and deciduous trees, and not dominated by garage doors. Like many developments in the Wakatipu, the area is subject to design controls and a design approval process, in regard to form, roof shape and pitch, and material controls. Set back on its site against a reserve, the Wright house gives the majority of the site over to a leveled lawn, and garden. The simple cottage form and reduced pallette of colour and material play the house as recessive to the garden, and surrounding mountains. The compact house is rectangular in form, with bedrooms split each side of a central living space. The central living area has a higher ceiling than the bedroom ends, however the whole roof is trussed with flat ceilings throughout. Externally the roofline has a cental raised portion of flatter pitch. The house is predominantly carpentry focussed, with a timber piled foundation. This enabled high speed construction techniques; the house took only 16 weeks to construct. The design and construction privileges thermal performance, and as such utilises compact design form, airtightness, low volume mechanical heat recovery ventilation system, orientation, eaves and window placement to reduce summer solar gain and promote winter solar gain, superinsulation, thermal bridge reduction, low thermal mass, low energy lighting (primarily LED) and solar assisted hot water heating. Having employed these techniques the house maintains ambient indoor temperatures with low energy electrical inputs. The house was published in HOME New Zealand in 2014 and featured in the NZ House & Garden 2015 Queenstown Home Tour.