A Home for the Next Stage
As retirement began to appear on the horizon, our homeowners started thinking about what the next stage of life might look like. Both working from home, they wanted a house that would feel comfortable year-round, support a healthy indoor environment, and reduce their reliance on energy as costs continue to rise. Downsizing made sense too but without giving up quality, or good design.
While exploring our High Performance Range, they were drawn to the Waikuku, a three-bedroom plan with a simple roofline and modern aesthetic. The design focuses on making every square metre count. Light-filled open living areas create a sense of generosity, while unnecessary or wasted space is designed out.
Having never built before, they were also looking for guidance — particularly around whether their chosen design could work in the Christchurch suburbs they had in mind.
Making the Plan Work
Our team helped identify sections that would suit the Waikuku and guided them through the realities of building in a new subdivision. Developer and council requirements such as glazing percentages, garage setbacks and landscaping all needed to be considered.
Working alongside the homeowners and our designer, we adapted the plan to meet these requirements while still allowing them to make the home their own.
The efficiency of the design also meant the homeowners could invest where it matters most … in the performance of the building itself.
The walls and ceiling are constructed using graphite SIPs panels, paired with high-performance uPVC windows. All joins are carefully taped and sealed to create an exceptionally airtight building envelope. The result was an airtightness level of 0.2 air changes per hour, an outstanding result when the international Passive House certification standard requires 0.6 ACH or less.
Comfort You Can Feel
This level of airtightness allows the home’s balanced heat recovery ventilation system to work at its best, continuously delivering fresh filtered air while recovering heat to maintain an even indoor temperature.
On the day of handover it was 27°C in Christchurch…. still, bright, and intensely hot. Yet inside the home it sat comfortably at around 20°C throughout, without air conditioning or the need to open windows to release heat. While the deck outside was almost too hot to walk on, every interior surface inside matched the indoor air temperature, creating a calm and comfortable environment the moment you stepped through the door.
For homeowners who both spend significant time working from home, this level of comfort, combined with minimal energy demand, was a key reason for building high performance. Looking ahead to retirement, the same priorities remain: health, comfort and predictable energy costs.
To remove uncertainty, every home we design is energy modelled during the design stage, giving homeowners confidence that their home will perform as intended and allowing informed decisions throughout the process.
For this couple, the result is a home designed not just for today, but for the decades ahead. It will be comfortable, efficient and quietly performing in the background so they can focus on enjoying the life around it.
