Riverside Barn
A tribute to its pristine pastoral location, Riverside Barn celebrates the essence of rural living within a contemporary minimalist framework – a contradictory aesthetic captured in character-rich Forté flooring.
Moving from Auckland’s urban bustle to the birdsong and bucolic beauty of New Zealand’s Hawke’s Bay, the owner of this barn-style build was driven by a vision of rural idyll. “The theme for the project was a contemporary barn in a meadow,” says architect Kyle Porter. “There was a clear intention that the building and garden sit quietly in the landscape and provide for a relaxed, rural lifestyle.”
Located on a site alongside the Tukituki River, with views of rolling hills and the majestic Te Mata Peak, the landscape played a defining role in the design of Riverside Barn. A knowledgeable gardener, the client was an active collaborator on the project, co-designing the whimsical ‘meadow’ garden that is an integral part of the overall design. “Buildings, mounds, trees and plantings are carefully placed to create a generous, sheltered and private environment,” says Porter. “A marked delineation between the introduced garden and the existing natural landscape was avoided.” Clad in cedar boards, which will weather to a camouflaging grey, the dwelling plays hide and seek behind a sheltering fringe of ornamental grasses and gnarled olive trees, a plant palette that deliberately blurs the line between the property and the surrounding pastures.
The design of Riverside Barn itself was a natural continuation of this tribute to terrain, appearing as a cluster of farm buildings – a design that also serves a practical purpose, making the home functional for the client to enjoy on her own, but with space and separation when friends and family come to visit. Rather than a single building abruptly plonked into the environment, Porter envisioned a more sympathetic design, with the dwelling being “a rhythm of barn forms enclosing a sheltered garden that dissolves into the natural landscape”.
The barn motif is cleverly captured by pared-back forms with pitched rooflines, large verandahs and cedar barn doors over multiple apertures. “Sliding timber shutters are clipped to the buildings, allowing openings to be covered to reinforce the barn-in-a-meadow theme,” explains Porter.
Panoramic expanses of slender steel-framed glass connect the outdoors to the interior, which combines contemporary simplicity with raw textures to reinforce the rustic theme. Finding a floor product that would toe this modern-meets-organic line was a crucial component of the design – one that Porter sourced with help from Forté. Though Forté is able to design and source bespoke flooring products for specific projects, Porter was fortunate enough to find exactly the right fit within the existing range. “Forté were wonderful to work with,” he comments. “They have an amazing showroom that clearly showcases their product, and they guided us to the product that really fitted our brief.”
The floorboards needed to sit within this simplified palette, while also capturing the rusticity of the setting.
“A timber floor with character was an important design decision,” says Porter, detailing that Riverside Barn’s interior was deliberately pared back, with pale walls and ceilings without decorative trims, as well as accents of steel, honed stone, oiled timber and copper. The floorboards needed to sit within this simplified palette, while also capturing the rusticity of the setting. “We chose Forté’s Artiste Rustic Picasso. It is a wide board with the character we sought: knots, splits and a raw, unfinished appearance.”
The clean lines drawn by the timber boards – extra wide at 250 millimetres – combined with the sense of movement afforded by the rustic grade, beautifully reflect the raw beauty of the landscape within the language of Riverside Barn’s contemporary architecture.
Architecture by Kyle Porter Architects. Build by Ainsworth & Collinson. Flooring by Forté.
