family home

The house has achieved a 7 star ‘Homestar’ design rating with ‘Lifemark’ features. The house has three wings which stretch along the 40 metre north facing boundary. It has four bedrooms with multi-space bedroom/games room/link between homes, three living areas, two kitchens, scullery, art room/mud room, two laundries, office and the usual bathroom amenities.

On the north side of the home all the windows are larger to attract the sun’s heat while on the south side the windows are smaller. Solar gain heats the home while the extra layers of insulation under the floor, in the walls and ceilings keep the heat in. R-values for the cladding and wall construction were calculated to help with overall thermal efficiency but also considered for aesthetics and ongoing beauty.

Inspiration for the exterior colour scheme came from the current black and white trend, with a twist – instead of the usual white plaster and black cedar so we wanted to twist this around and go black plaster and white cedar. The white cedar changed to natural looking Resene Wood-X Traverse teamed with Resene Quarter Bokara Grey on the plaster and Resene Black on the soffits. The thermally broken aluminium frames and roof are Ebony with the front door being glass with Ebony painted behind. Decks will be added at a later date.

As an architectural designer, Sandra Davies designed and detailed every aspect of this family home. In order to keep costs down as much as possible she also took on the role of project manager and employed a builder as labour only. Having never done that side of a build before this added extra challenge and stress. Although the home was a year in planning that was predominately the plans and detailing planning. A key learning for next time was to allow more planning time for pricing, quotes and material selection.

Architectural specifier: Sandra Davies
Building contractor: Arthur Robertson
Painting contractor: Nathan Davies
Painting contractor: Warren Turton, Northern Plastering Services
Project: Resene Total Colour Awards 2018