This house on the eastern shore of Lake Dunstan was built in two stages. Kim Dungey reports.
Located on a commercial vineyard, this Bendigo Terrace home was designed to take advantage of the surrounding views.
Architect Barry Condon, of Condon Scott Architects, says the site’s standout feature is the panoramic view over Lake Dunstan towards the Pisa mountain range.
"The site is exposed to the harsh and unforgiving Otago climate, cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. The ground is rocky and dry. However, there is beauty to be found in its raw ruggedness."
The home’s owners wanted a minimal form that was clean and uncluttered. This was distilled down to a floor plane and a roof plane, with fully glazed walls between to frame the view.
The idea was to create an open pavilion that appeared to float over the rocky site and that was open at either end so the couple could see up and down the entire valley. The floating form was achieved by creating a negative space around the perimeter of the ground floor plane and cantilevering the oversized concrete slab.
This reflects the floating roof above, which sits at 3m high to ensure the mountain range is visible from each room and the mountain tops are not cropped from the view.
Elevating the building slightly also ensures the occupants can see over the tops of the vines, Condon says. When the design process began, these were only just being planted, but he knew they could grow up to 1.8m tall.
To speed up construction and enable the owners to occupy the house sooner, it was completed in stages. The first pavilion, built in 2021, included the living spaces and the master bedroom. The second stage is linked by a glazed hallway and contains the guest bedrooms, laundry and wine cellar.
Inside, a series of "pods" contain services such as the bathrooms, wine cellar, scullery, wardrobes and storage. These pods are set back from the glazing line, creating a corridor.
Windows and internal doors retract into the walls, creating the open, minimalist look requested by the owners.
Exterior materials were also kept to a minimum, with the concrete on the floor and metal on the roof chosen for their clean, modern finishes.
Inside, there is a schist fireplace — all the stone for the house was sourced locally — and dark-stained timber veneer on the walls and joinery. Timber batten ceilings in the living spaces create visual interest and improve acoustic performance.
A heated concrete floor and ducted heat pumps keep the owners cosy in winter.
"Maximising solar gain in the winter and minimising it in the summer was a priority," Condon says. "The roof plane [extends] a metre beyond the ground floor to help deflect the sun’s intensity during summer while allowing it into the home during winter, where its heat is absorbed by the building’s thermal mass."
"Radiant barriers, to reduce heat transfer between the building and the outside environment, were also included [in the form of] thermally-broken floor slabs and window joinery."
The extreme Central Otago climate meant the main contractor, Hudson Builders, had to contend with everything from fog, frost and snow to hot, dry summers, he adds.
Dealing with this was not the only challenge. Covid 19, lockdowns, isolating staff and supply chain issues all had to be navigated. The owners were also overseas for much of the first stage and unable to visit.
"Covid elongated that first stage a little more than we would have liked, but we got there in the end," Condon says, adding that for him, the best part of the house is that the view is not revealed immediately.
First, visitors progress through the entry foyer and glazed corridor.
"Then you arrive into the living pavilion and the whole space opens up in front of you and you get that huge view out towards the [mountain] range . . . That’s probably my favourite bit," he says.
