The site was a secret valley that had been subdividedoff from a larger farm located about an hour north or Auckland. 

I wanted to explore what a “Modern Farmhouse” could be using traditional New Zealand rural buildings as a reference point.

The clients wanted to retreat from the city back to a rural environmentwhich evoked memories of their childhood on a dairy farm. This search for nostalgia lead to a rustic materiality that favoured the romantic over intellectual abstraction.

The collection of structures is assembled informally around a gravelled entry yard and a 3m step in the ground contour to the level of the lawns. This arrangement allows the buildings and the interstitial spaces to constantly re-frame the landscape as occupants move though the site.

Instead of the modernist dissolution of the interior and exterior, there are clear divides between the two and a gradation of light and volume from the large well-lit spaces to the smaller darker ones.