This woodland refuge is a coming together of ancestral and agricultural methods.
Traditional Māori techniques meet digital milling technology in this classic, simple whare at Summerhill Farm, near Papamoa. The project, by Andrew Barrie Lab, Josh Bovill and Batchelar McDougall Consulting, was built by university students as a place of shelter and repose, and it overlooks a stream in a bush-dense valley.
Set up as a charitable trust, the 126-hectare property is a haven for outdoor enthusiasts and supports educational opportunities within a working farm and forest environment.
Using plantation timber grown and milled on-site, this delightful little building cost only $8000 to design, prefabricate, ship and install. It needed to be easy to construct by unskilled labour, so it adopts, and adapts, the methodology of post-tensioned heavy timber construction from pre-colonial times and draws on processes typically used on farms. A central post-and-beam supports the roof, which is made of polycarbonate and rests on simple battens, while standard wire and low-cost tensioners help tie the structure together. Red edges on the roof beams and wall posts are a joyful touch.
Made in a factory, then packed to minimal volume and shipped to site, it’s a lightweight, low-carbon solution that is an exploration of Aotearoa’s built response to the climate emergency. For now, though, it serves as a welcome marker on the trail, where hikers, mountain bikers and farm workers might pause for a cup of tea and to drink their fill of the natural environment.
Summerhill Whare received a gold pin in the Private, Public and Institutional Spaces category of the 2024 Best Awards.
Photography Patrick Reynolds