Sugi House

It was on a Japanese ski trip that the owners of this Wanaka house came to appreciate the efficiency of small spaces. Staying in a compact two-bedroom vacation home in the mountains, they saw that a small, carefully designed house could be comfortable and pleasant to live in.

The floorplan is tight but carefully considered. The aim was for a refined, precise and crafted aesthetic, allocating only as much space as is required to each function. The timber panelling and alignment has been carefully thought through to extend the sense of space indoors.

The house also has a strong materiality externally, with a singular cladding and roofing material of warm cedar shingles, which has the added benefit of being low maintenance. As the house faces the street, glazing is restrained and aimed towards views to the west of Mt Roy.

SIPs are taped, sealed and wrapped in a secondary layer of building wrap plus plywood to maximise thermal efficiency. The house and the areas of glazing are orientated to maximise solar gain, with minimal openings on the remaining sides of the house to preserve the thermal envelope. Windows are double glazed low-e glass, argon filled and thermally broken to prevent moisture retention and heat loss.