Feeling super
This new Canterbury home designed by Bob Burnett Architecture checks the boxes as a sustainable, certified Superhome that is also a joy to live in.
WORDS Cassie Doherty PHOTOGRAPHY Dennis Radermacher
There’s a winning combination when it comes to house design, says Bob Burnett, director of Bob Burnett Architecture. It’s the bringing together of beautiful architecture and high-performance criteria. And too often, the beautiful architecture takes second place.
“I think the key is design,” says Bob. “A lot of sustainable ratings are about the technical side, the thermal performance. It’s about ticking the boxes
and filling out the spreadsheet. While these technical specifications are very important, I think a Superhome needs to be the best of both worlds: a holistic, well- designed home, first and foremost, with beautiful aesthetics and the best possible living environment.”
And Bob should know. He founded the Superhome Movement in 2015 after the Christchurch earthquakes forced him into a series of rental houses, highlighting New Zealand’s dire housing standards. The organisation lobbies for change in the country’s building industry.
And at Bob Burnett Architecture, he leads by example.
“Once people experience living in a home that’s well-designed, they understand. It’s all about having an aesthetically pleasing home that is delightful to live in, as well as warm, comfortable and high-performance. The best comment I hear when we finish a home is that it’s got a nice feel. As designers, that’s what we’re striving for, to provide something with some soul.”
Darren McGuire of MO Tiles in Christchurch helped create the bathroom concept, and said homeowner Paul Watson immediately loved these tiles. They are 450 x 900mm Plant Copper by Refin, and were chosen for their earthy, warm and natural tones.
Homeowners Paul and Shirley Watson can attest to that. “If someone had told me beforehand that our house could be so nice to live in, I wouldn’t have believed them,” says Paul of their new-build home in Prebbleton in Canterbury.
“When we talked to Bob, he talked about how he had all these checkpoints for making a home extremely energy-efficient but how you could easily get caught in the trap of just checking off those boxes and end up with a really dry design. He actually thought about the liveability and the design all the way through.”
And there’s nothing so illustrative of the concept of form meeting functionality than the stone wall that runs through the centre of the house. It’s a dramatic feature, clad in Classic Stone veneer that makes the house a standout.
But there’s more to it than that.
“It serves a few functions,” says Bob. “Spatially, it provides the separation between the public area and
the private area. So there are two bedrooms and two bathrooms on one side and on the other, the kitchen- dining-living and the guest bedroom that Shirley also uses as her craft room. It allows for high-level windows for cross-ventilation and that beautiful quality of light. And the wall also houses a lot of the plant infrastructure. So the heating system is actually inside the wall, as is the ventilation unit and the ductwork, the hot water cylinder and a bit of storage.”
The stone cladding from Classic Stone is the Southern Ledgestone profile in the Wanaka Blend colour. The Southern Ledgestone profile is a contemporary take on New Zealand schist: its balance of modern and rustic suits the application of the central spine that runs through the home and anchors the build.
The stone wall was the starting point for the rest of the house. The black Colorsteel was chosen for its longevity and low maintenance and as a modern complement to the more rustic stone. And the cedar cladding enhances the tactile feel and adds biophilic properties. “Humans respond better to natural materials,” says Bob. “Wood just makes us feel better.”
Paul and Shirley both come from nursing backgrounds. That’s why the Superhome approach was so appealing to them.
“I’m well aware of how privileged we are to have a house like this,” says Paul. “The building standard in New Zealand is so far behind most other parts of the developed world, and this makes no sense to me from a health background. We have lots of elderly and young people in hospitals, from living in cold, damp houses.”
Bob says this was the first house in Canterbury to be awarded ADNZ’s recently introduced Kaitiakitanga Award for sustainability. Kaitiakitanga is the ethics and practice of protection and conservation of the natural environment and the resources within it.
There are 10 main principles in the making of a Superhome. Some are self-explanatory and easy to achieve, while others require a lot of pre-planning and forethought.
They include thermal performance, which involves energy modelling.
“I was surprised by the technicalities that went into measuring the angle of the sun and light and how much that would impact on the heating of the house,” says Paul. “It was actually about preventing the house from overheating rather than being too cold.” Even the planting of deciduous trees shading the windows is included in the thermal calculations.
Other principles are structure, which includes super-insulation, and windows that are high- performance and recessed to be in line with insulation. Airtightness and ventilation go hand-in-hand, and systems such as solar panels and heat pumps are gaining in popularity.
Addressing water efficiency can be as small a step
as installing water-efficient taps or appliances. Here, rainwater is collected by ground-level gutters that channel into a 4000-litre water tank hidden under the driveway. It’s treated with UV light so it can be used for drinking, showering and washing as well as irrigation and toilet flushing, to supplement the mains-connected water.
Solar Living installed 18 panels on the roof of this new build, which is controlled by the PowerGenius home energy management system. Solar Living is a member of the Superhome movement so is committed to sustainable – and affordable – solutions.
Materials should be recyclable, low-carbon and responsibly sourced, says Bob.
“Dealing with waste, that’s a big one,” says Bob. “And it’s actually easy to have a lot less waste going to landfill. The construction industry is responsible for approximately 50 per cent of waste to landfill, with a lot of it being completely unnecessary. You can eliminate waste just through clever design. Using prefabricated methods, for example, and using optimal dimensions so you’re not cutting materials in the first place.”
And the main principle, of course, is overarching. “Design filters through all of those things,” says Bob.
He and the homeowners are pleased with the end result.
“A really good part of this project was having really good clients,” says Bob. “People that are like-minded, have a similar world outlook and understand the things that we do. Who take the path less travelled and have the courage to do something different.”
For more information, watch a video here
Involved in this project
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGNER
Bob Burnett Architecture
0800 002 674
bbarc.com
STONE CLADDING
Classic Stone
0800 278 663
classicstone.co.nz
SOLAR PANELS
Solar Living NZ
027 226 4536
solarliving.co.nz
BATHROOM TILES
MO Tiles
03 338 0155
motiles.co.nz
