Home sweet home

“The time has come to learn from Down Under,” where homes have sustainable features “light years ahead of the curve,” are “modestly scaled and unpretentious, employ an original aesthetic language, and without fail, offer designs that [are] contextually relevant.” Examples seem to roll off the tongue. The Queenstown home of architecture duo Bronwen Kerr and Pete Ritchie is a design triumph, “relaxed but still rigorous, with a breezy unorthodoxy all its own. It seems to derive strength from its robust surroundings without attempting to outdo them.” The Norrish House in Tauranga boasts a maze of doors that seamlessly connect inside and out, and the Harwood Smith House in Quaeanbeyan is a perfect example of doing “less on paper and more on construction sites.” The Westmere House in Auckland, meanwhile, is a “fusion of modernist forms with origami-like geometries.” Using solar heated hot water, recycled rainwater for the toilets and laundry, and passive solar and ventilation, it “represents an ethos of sustainability that even traditionally minded neighbours can get behind.”