Steel Gift Boxes – Pouaka Waikura by Patterson Associates

Aligning as a considered sequence of nomadic forms sculpting its own rural street, Pouaka Waikura sits anchored to its site, extending a vernacular familiar and resonant to its owners. Taking a unique approach to a beguiling site, Patterson Associates’ deliberately simplified methodology creates an intuitive connection to place.

The connection between a home and its inhabitants is a profoundly personal one, a particular and peculiar relationship that evolves over time as one’s nuanced ways of inhabiting a space make their mark on the dwelling. The qualities of a building, in turn, come to shape the lives of those who call it home. Pouaka Waikura emerged from the story of such a relationship the owners had with an early settlement cottage where they had previously lived. Separated into individual steel forms and scaled as small cottages and sheds, Pouaka Waikura takes its cues from the clients’ connection to both their former home and to the site.

Separated into individual steel forms and scaled as small cottages and sheds, Pouaka Waikura takes its cues from the clients’ connection to both their former home and to the site.

Founding Director of Patterson Associates Andrew Patterson says, “the home is imagined and planned based on how [the clients] spend their days, and the build brief was really based on how they wanted to live.” With an entry sequence to match the one they had known for many years, where “you would enter through the kitchen,” navigation between the forms is developed in a way that suits them, allowing them to engage with people and the site. Aptly named from the Māori phrase translating loosely as ‘rusted steel gift boxes’, the resulting home is deeply connected to its landscape, referencing the owners’ role as custodians of the land.

Nestled into the valley overlooking the Lower Shotover River, Pouaka Waikura sits a short drive from the popular Queenstown and Arrowtown, yet far enough away to feel completely removed and isolated. In describing the clients’ relationship to the site, Andrew says, “the owners are of the South Island Iwi or Māori tribes, and even share in rights to gather sub-Antarctic mutton birds, which were traditionally, and still are, given as gifts.” He adds, “food is important.”

Robust and tough, the forms sit proud and bold amongst the rugged and raw landscape, while the casing in Corten steel offers an element of immediate protection.

The rusted steel boxes are a reference to the surrounding context, Andrew explains. These forms take inspiration from the rural landscapes around New Zealand, where collections of old barns and machinery sheds dot the landscape, often spread along the gravel as relics reminding of the area’s agricultural past. “These unique pieces become sculptures almost; the high county climate in the South Island is ideal for preserving and resisting rust.” Looking to both rural and industrial musings, there is a connection to the previous narrative of the site that the team wanted to maintain.

“The buildings are set out as their own rural-industrial world and as a nod to the previous founding nature of the area. The sequence starts as a parking shed, which morphs into the winemaking area, and then the first building becomes the guest cottage for family, followed by the owners’ own one-bedroom dwelling, and the last is a workshop to tinker on machinery and cars.” While the industrial and rural citations are retained in spirit, the level of refinement and curated detail ensures an endurance and robustness is befitting of both the location and the intent as a forever home. Andrew adds, “it is about being authentically rural, and an honest kind of living.”

Built by John Gavin Construction and with landscaping to the immediate vicinity of the home by Suzanne Turley Landscapes, the project acts as an extension of the owner’s lived experience of habitation. Their previous home, Andrew says, “was an 1860s tiny wooden cottage, situated 500 metres further up the road. The first door opened into the kitchen, which had its own fireplace. It was very rugged and pioneering, and the owners were similar, very resilient, and we wanted to carry those sensibilities through.” The resulting home took heeded reference, he adds. “We wanted it to be a very comfortable version of how they had lived in their little cottage, motioning the entrance through the kitchen and the casual mixing of vehicles and people, all pulled up and walking straight into the belly of the home. We wanted to continue that life but reinterpret it through contemporary architecture.”

Robust and tough, the forms sit proud and bold amongst the rugged and raw landscape, while the casing in Corten steel offers an element of immediate protection. “The river here is quite protected by the mountains, and the site is one of the last to be developed,” Andrew says. Having had the land for some 20 years before deciding to relocate, the owners had planted and tended to their own vines, which now form a soft buffering boundary above the house. The forms align with the linear flow of the river below, “deliberately arranged on the river terrace, facing the sun in a way that enables the inhabitants to have everything they need to live a remote life there – offered as a meeting, eating, working, and social space above the river.”

Internally, the spaces echo a similar simplicity and clarity, with a focus on the landscape with framed views outward. Each building has a slightly different view out to the river and the picturesque mountains – some look up, some look at turns, and some look down. A sense of warmth is reinforced through textural layers and the central location of the fireplace, while the rusted palette and concrete elements are a nod to the colours of the landscape, where the rock, grasses and native flora cascade down the valleys.

Sitting in the high country of the South Island, Pouaka Waikura is a measured gift to the site. Taking influence from the past workings of the land, it aptly proposes itself as a sculptural series of icons to age gracefully in place with time. By engaging openly and empathetically with the clients, Patterson Associates has crafted a unique and purposed residence – a true home grounded in both history and the owners’ more immediate connection to the landscape.