The Concept - The Blanket Bay Block, Lot 12 View Site Location
The site is poised on a plateau above Lake Wakatipu, enveloped by spectacular mountain scenery. This plateau is raw and natural, resplendent in its own ruggedness, bracing the elements.
Entry to the site is across a stream, and along a winding driveway through native Matagouri. These bushes provide enveloping shelter to the South and West edges, whereas the other faces succumb to the view: the native grasses blowing in the wind, softening the jagged lines of mountains.
The inhabitation of the house relates to the experiences of the land it presides within: contrasts of light and shade; robustness and fragility; texture and raw material; simplicity and sophistication.
The house is a series of traditional building forms, gathered as if in a farmyard to provide areas of shelter and exposure. This gathering of forms and details is itself an evolutionary journey; the historic, in places ruinous, overlapped with modern interpretations of traditional forms, materials and textures: the house as much an inherent, natural element of the site as the twisting Matagouri and the sculptural forms of rock.