Christchurch style, 30 years on

From our friends at NZ On Screen, this excerpt from David Mitchell's exemplary 1980s show about architecture, 'The Elegant Shed', examines 'Christchurch style' and is particularly interesting in a post-quake context. Enjoy.

 

David Mitchell & Julie Stout's studio

As promised earlier (and our apologies for this being a promise we've been slow to deliver on), here are some extra shots of David Mitchell and Julie Stout's studio, which is adjacent to their new house on Auckland's North Shore. The house was the subject of an earlier post, but as the studio is an intriguing structure in its own right, we wanted to share more of Patrick Reynolds' photos of it here.

David and Julie had the studio built before their house, and lived in it while the house went up on the site behind them. They liked the 19th century idea of garden follies, so designed a contemporary version for themselves. In the image below, you can see why some passersby thought the roof had slid off after construction was finished:


Now, the flaxes are flourishing on the roof garden, which makes for a great hangout for tui and a pleasant addition to the view from David and Julie's bathroom, on the third floor of the big house. In the shot below, you can see the inside of the studio, filled with light playing over the honeyed tones of the plywood linings.

The small kitchen is located underneath the mezzanine bedroom:


At one end of the kitchen, a small cutout in the cast concrete walls allows a glimpse of the shallow pool that surrounds much of the house, reflecting dappled patterns of light inside during the day.


Julie says the railings on the mezzanine floor make the world's best drying rack.


Upstairs, a tiny bathroom is tucked behind a glass partition beside the bed. This is a very small space, but its complexity and warmth make it easy to imagine living there, at least for a while. At the moment, Julie and David use it as a space for guests, but it could also be adapted to become a space for working from home, or rented out if necessary ... David and Julie both like the idea of the house being easily adapted to fit their future needs, or those of people who might eventually live in it after they're gone.

Mitchell & Stout on the North Shore

David Mitchell & Julie Stout's home on Auckland's North Shore is a complex beast, so let's take a slow tour of the exterior, courtesy of our photographer Patrick Reynolds. Here's a view of the house from the street, looking up at the top-floor terrace:

This is a view of the main entrance, sheltered by a large polycarbonate sheet that sends rainwater into the half-pipe you can see in this shot. In rainstorms, the water rockets along it towards the tank:

The polycarbonate sheet in the shot below serves the purpose of lending privacy to the kitchen, without diminishing the amount of light that gets in there. You can see the lower slopes of Rangitoto in the distance in this shot, as well as the home's 'moat' with water lilies.

And here's another view of the 'moat', this time looking from between the house and the garden studio, which sits at a slightly offset angle to it. At some times of the day, the sunlight reflecting off the water creates a lovely quality of light inside the ground-floor flat occupied by Julie's mother.

This view is of the ramp leading from the garden to what Julie and David call the 'back' door of the house, which opens into the kitchen and dining area.

Come back and visit the blog next week and we'll take you for a few more photo tours, including David and Julie's garden studio, and some of the other Home of the Year houses.