Onepuke

Architecture in Aotearoa often has the privilege of being set within the context of outstanding natural landscapes and views that reach out beyond into oceans and mountains or over rolling pasture making for effortless context within place and wild. But where the views are we also face the elements, the sun and coastal or alpine winds creating the challenge of finding and creating places where we can gather outside with shelter from the persevering elements.

The deep sand banks created a vertical canvas upon which clouds of plants create a sense of place within place.
Stone steps mimic water falling through the center of the composition, flowing and floating at once inviting visitors up into the upper lawn which reveals again the vast ocean beyond.

This is where the garden holds importance, be it a courtyard within a house or a space created by garden alone we need a place to be sheltered within the softness of nature without its extremes.

The boulders selected from the same quarry as the stone steps are sandblasted and each has a character which settles it into the garden.
The garden wraps around the courtyard which itself is like a fallen shadow following the angles of the house.  A fireplace which extends into the garden and hides behind it a kitchen garden and BBQ area.

Slatted vertical screens carefully angled and alternating create a wall of privacy that is never solid but instead opens select framed views into the garden and draws light permeating through shifting angles like a sundial falling on the Timaru stone as the sun shifts through the day.

The planting is vast yet soft, deliberate yet gentle, unravelling into extensive native plantings that roll down the hills behind into Puriri line drives and groves of Pohutukawa. But for a moment between house and landscape is garden. A place of nurture, of shelter a place to let the evenings melt into the early hours of the morning before the sea calls you back to the immense views beyond