Clyde Crib

by Mason & Wales Architects

Clyde Crib is situated in Picnic Creek, a rural-residential subdivision on a terrace overlooking the Clutha River in the small Central Otago township of Clyde. The project brief was to build a holiday retreat for a Dunedin couple that could also accommodate their close-knit family, including three married daughters with their husbands, 10 grandchildren and family dogs. Clyde Crib, designed by Hamish Muir Architect Director at Mason & Wales Architects, who also happens to be the client’s son-in-law, is a contemporary take on early Central Otago miners’ huts and agrarian farm buildings. The house design includes a generous open-plan kitchen, dining and living area with outdoor terraces and courtyards connected to a master suite, with three additional bedrooms, a separate self-contained bunkroom, drive through garage and outdoor kitchen, as well as master planning and provision for possible future expansion.

Material selections suit the local vernacular with traditional construction methodology but employing the latest available technologies for high performance. The roof form, a simple extruded gable, is clad in metal tray roofing, with a scale and rhythm that provides a strong graphic form within the landscape. Exterior wall cladding is traditional board and batten profiles, also oversized in scale, to provide pattern and texture for visual relief from the relatively simple and large building forms. Outdoor and indoor fireplaces are faced in blackened rolled steel for a heavy-duty and no-nonsense aesthetic. Cedar timber sarking and linings are used internally where possible, to provide texture, character and warmth and relate to the exterior materials. The rest of the interior has strong clean lines with rustic earthy tones, and provides a backdrop for comfortable, easy living in this successful multi-generational holiday retreat.