Courtyard House

Between Whitford and Brookby sits a rather majestic subdivision on top of a hill overlooking the Coromandel Ranges, right over the Hauraki Gulf and out to Manukau Heads in the other direction. It's a commanding position in terms of outlook, yet it isn’t the place you’d traditionally locate the family farmhouse.

But this was the unique request that came from SGA’s client, who had long been farmers in the area and who have land scattered around the region. They wanted their farmhouse to sit within this subdivision, in close proximity to their farms.

SGA’s Roy Tebbutt who worked on the project, says the brief for a medium-sized family farmhouse that catered to the couple in their fifties and their adult children, meant the typology of the build was self-evident.

“We took back the design to a rural language. It’s not your typical shed form, but the materiality plays on a twist on the Kiwi shed.”

The design concept for the form of the home came from one of the restrictions of the site. Each lot in the subdivision had a designated building platform due to ground instability in the area. For his clients’ site this meant a 20 x 20 metre designated building platform.

“Rather than apply for resource consent and incur an additional cost, we set ourselves a parameter and thought, let's see what happens if we stay within it.”

From this restriction, a reductive design process took place. The house was conceived of as a square that took in all of that space, but rather than having an overarching roof form that might look rather clunky, the design of the home breaks the building into smaller parts that each have their own individual roof form.

“What you can see if you're looking from the street is a peaked roof to the left over the garage and main bedroom, a peak to the right over the kids bedrooms, bathrooms and service spaces, and another roof form beyond that in the middle that covers the living areas.”

The clients also required a sheltered outdoor courtyard, so the square format was cut into to create that outdoor space.

“The house wraps three sides of the courtyard, and the landscape block wall closes the other edge of the site so it's a completely contained courtyard space.”

Creating a home within a subdivision, also meant that privacy was a key part of the brief and the block wall that borders the courtyard also wraps right around the front of the site to create a fortress of sorts.

“The house is relatively close and exposed to the road, so we looked at ways that we could create privacy. We conceived a big long block landscape wall facing the road that is an external landscape wall and is connected to the house – you can't tell where it blurs.”

The wall also creates a sense of mystery to what lies beyond, says Roy.

“When you're approaching a house, and there's this big, long wall, you can't tell the scale of the house behind it. It could be a huge castle, or a tiny home.”

In reality, the house behind it is modest in size and the materiality ties both into the block wall and to a rural architectural vernacular.

“Metal cladding was one way of achieving a rural feeling building, while also being economical. The materiality is not pretentious and each of the three main materials: concrete block (and veneer), Siberian larch, and metal cladding in a Kahu profile are very much in their natural state.”

They’re also all low maintenance materials and the Siberian larch was used instead of the often-used cedar, to give a more rustic character appearance to both exterior and interior spaces.

The larch wraps the interior ceilings to bring the outdoors in, and in the voluminous 3.4 metre height living spaces it gives a dramatic contrast to the walls.

A split-level format means the bedroom areas are raised and each feature a timber floor, while the living areas feature concrete floors.

Roy says the split level breaks up the mass of the home and makes it feel cosy and intimate. But his favourite feature of the project, is the feature after which it is named:

“The courtyard space is absolutely magic – it's got great landscaping, it’s green and sheltered and it’s like a lung for the house to breathe and cross-ventilate.”

Words: Jo Seton

Photography by: Simon Devitt Photographer