Inspired by Nature – Briar Banks House by Rafe Maclean Architects

Taking inspiration from the surrounding natural environment Briar Banks House sits sharply yet tonally disguised in its enviable setting. Rafe Mclean Architects draws references from the home’s context into the flexibly-planned occasional home.

In its popular location of Wanaka, Briar Banks House sits perfectly sited to the nearby alpine region and within reach of the popular Queenstown. An area becoming increasingly popular as a permanent address, it remains a favoured place for holiday homes. The brief called for a house able to accommodate the many visiting adult children of the clients and act as a place that could expand and contract, neither feeling too vast or too restricted. Rafe Maclean Architects stikes a balance where flexibility and a staggered plan offers a variety of options for use.

In its popular location of Wanaka, Briar Banks House sits perfectly sited to the nearby alpine region and within reach of the popular Queenstown.

The palette takes cues from the surrounding mountain tonality and reinterprets them in the applied overall shell. In the absence of snow during the winter months, the overall volume is imagined sitting disguised amongst its natural elements. The home opens up to its enviable view as one moves through the home and into the open planned living area and extended deck. Internally, the materiality is brought together through a contemporary lens and sits starkly as a contrasting element to its natural encasing exterior shell. The use of a clean white interior, warmed through timber and stone elements, creates an element of relief from the exterior and the formality of its manicured landscape.

Designed to require a low level of maintenance, sustainable principles are embedded throughout. The building is deliberately comprised of a low thermal mass to allow for it to be quickly heated, while western solar heat gains are diverted. The planning creates multiple opportunities for a sense of shelter from the elements to be created, while still maintaining and framing the primary views outward. From approach, the overall volume transcends in a stepped pattern, making the transition from streetscape to built-form more subtle and opening up to more generous and encompassing glazing.

An area becoming increasingly popular as a permanent address, it remains a favoured place for holiday homes.

Briar Banks House is brought together through a sense of refinement and a need for the home to be a place of endurance. A home to the owners and its five adult children, Rafe Maclean Architects shows a considered and respectful understanding of the home’s context and through select local materiality proposes a home that sits comfortably cloaked in its surrounds.