George Clarke's Homes in the Wild (2025) Season 1 Episode 1

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George Clarke's Homes in the Wild  George Clarke's Homes in the Wild (2025) S01E01 George Clarke's Homes in the Wild (2025) Season 1 Episode 1

Transcript

00:00From the windswept cliffs of Australia's coastline to the ancient silence of the New Zealand bush.

00:11That is without any shadow of a doubt. One of the most amazing journeys I've ever been on.

00:19I will venture to places where the landscape still calls the shots.

00:24Every decision is shaped by the elements.

00:34And the isolation.

00:36Look how beautiful this is. That is unbelievable.

00:42What I've discovered isn't just clever design. It's passion.

00:48This is a healing house. It's saved our marriage.

00:52It's creativity.

00:54Looks like some alien ship that's landed from outer space.

01:00And it's survival.

01:03On an island that doesn't have a corner store, you can't just shoot down and get a little side of something.

01:08Because out here, you meet a different kind of person.

01:14Friend or foe?

01:16Definitely friend.

01:18Daring.

01:20I want Pat's house. I want her house. I want her shower. And I want her bathtub.

01:24Innovative.

01:28And deeply connected to the land they live on.

01:32My grandfather must have really loved my grandmother to have built a room like this for her.

01:40Shall we move on? Because we're going to cry.

01:46Join me, George Clark, and together we'll discover some of New Zealand and Australia's wildest hauls.

01:53Just off the coast of New Zealand is a place where the Pacific Ocean never rests.

02:13And the land still feels wild.

02:19A remote weather-beaten paradise shaped by the sea.

02:26And by solitude.

02:28And to really crank the anxiety up a notch, I'm travelling there.

02:36On this tiny plane.

02:42I'm heading to Altair, Great Barrier Island.

02:45I've dreamt of coming to this place.

02:51A thriving, off-grid community nestled in an ecological paradise.

02:59I'm on a journey to meet the fearless pioneers who've carved out homes and lives in one of the most unpredictable corners of the world.

03:17Great Barrier Island is 285 square kilometres of rolling wilderness.

03:37Tucked away behind the island's eastern shoreline is an isolated holiday home.

03:42Accessible only at low tide.

03:47You ready for this?

03:50Because it's going to be a bit bumpy.

03:56Ooh, not that.

03:58I could have done with that tractor.

04:05It's fantastic.

04:07You've got this beautiful estuary.

04:11Surrounded by the most amazing nature.

04:17Oh, my God, look at that.

04:22That is one heck of a house.

04:24A tented structure is the last thing I expected to see on this weather-beaten island.

04:36But there's clearly a story behind it.

04:38And I'm hoping owner Simon can help me understand the method behind the madness.

04:47Simon.

04:48George.

04:49Welcome.

04:50Very nice to meet you.

04:51How are you?

04:52Very, very, very, very happy to be here.

04:53Welcome to the Opera House.

04:55It looks like it's landed from outer space.

04:57It's so futuristic.

04:58It is quite unusual, isn't it?

05:03Company director Simon and his young family acquired this unconventional holiday home post-build in 2010.

05:12A two-bedroom, two-bathroom build with one very intriguing backstory.

05:22I mean, that is one incredible position to look at the building.

05:26It's curve after curve after curve everywhere.

05:28Yeah.

05:33The architect, Greg Noble, he originally was a great admirer of Native North American architecture.

05:38And his original sketches of this were of a teepee-like structure.

05:42Oh, really?

05:43So, hence the use of an endoskeleton.

05:46Plus, it has a riv up here with the solar panels on top.

05:52As you can see, it's a complete tension structure.

05:55So, these stainless steel wire ropes down here are integral to the structure.

05:59If you cut those cables, the whole thing would kind of pop back, wouldn't it?

06:02Yeah.

06:03A lot of people do ask, well, does it open up right now?

06:05I know I'm only in emergency, but that's not a good thing.

06:09Did it take long to build?

06:11Well, I think a lot of the time and effort was in the original fabrication.

06:15Yeah.

06:17Those ribs, they were manufactured in Wellington.

06:19They put it together three or four times down there before they put it on a barge.

06:23Oh, really?

06:24Yeah.

06:25When it actually came on site, my understanding is it only took four days to put the tensioned structure in place.

06:32That's pretty amazing.

06:33Yeah.

06:34Did you just think, I need to have that?

06:36Yeah.

06:37Did you fall in love with this straight away?

06:38Yeah, we bought it on the same day.

06:39Did you?

06:40Yeah.

06:41Did you?

06:42Basically, yeah.

06:43I mean, today's a very calm, beautiful, warm day, but this building must have to really withstand the elements through the year.

06:51Yeah, absolutely.

06:52So if you go east from here, there's not much between here and Chile.

06:55So when the storms come in from the east, there's a lot of fetch and they can be massive storms.

07:00Sounds brutal.

07:01It is brutal at times, yeah, and I call it atmospheric salt.

07:05You get a lot of foam and spray and what have you that basically comes in and that's why you've really got to maintain your places out here because salt obviously is the great destroyer.

07:17Have you ever been inside it when it's been battered?

07:20Yeah, absolutely.

07:21It's good fun.

07:22It's good fun.

07:23Yeah.

07:24I love the positivity.

07:25There's plenty of noise and there's lots of board games.

07:28It's just spectacular.

07:29Yeah, love it.

07:38Can we go inside now?

07:39Yeah, please.

07:40Come and take a look.

07:41It's one of the most unique houses I've ever seen.

07:55Very, very clever piece of elegant structural design.

08:03It feels cavernous, but it also feels really intimate.

08:08Yeah, well, it's very much an open plan structure, even though we refer to it in different ways.

08:14So you've got zones.

08:15Zones.

08:16You've zoned everything.

08:17Yeah.

08:18So you've got a kind of chill out seating zone.

08:20You've got your kitchen zone.

08:23I love the fireplace, by the way.

08:25That must belt out the heat.

08:26That really does.

08:32You're using it like an entertaining hall, isn't it?

08:34Yeah.

08:35It's like a little concert hall.

08:36Yeah, you've got music playing in here.

08:39You've got friends and family over, kids running around.

08:41It's a single volume space.

08:43Well, the acoustics are very good in here, actually.

08:45I wouldn't claim to be an expert on it, but it seems that way to me.

08:48So when we get the stereo set up and you're playing some music, it's good fun.

08:53It's good fun.

08:58Just stand there for me a second while I do this little test.

09:04That's it.

09:06You can feel the tension.

09:07Oh, my God!

09:08When I hit that there, I can hear the sound going all the way through the fabric and reverberating around the space.

09:18Yeah.

09:20I mean, that's like some sort of sound of Star Wars.

09:23You can feel the tension inside the space.

09:28You can feel that it's being kind of stretched and pulled and anchored down.

09:34It's a really clever piece of structural design.

09:36You've got these kind of big steel sections running through in these channels,

09:40which then connects to the bottom of those beautiful ribbed skeletal pieces of steel,

09:45and it straps the entire thing down to the ground.

09:48I love it.

09:49I love the honesty of it.

09:50I love the fact that you can see all the structure everywhere.

09:53Every single bolt, every single bracket.

09:57And it just feels like you're in an elegant piece of engineering.

10:04Can we wander up your staircase?

10:05Yeah, a place to come upstairs.

10:10What a position to stand in.

10:11Oh, that's fantastic, that.

10:17Absolutely beautiful.

10:22Seeing the home from the second story, I get a different perspective.

10:28There's not a single internal door, window, or even wall that touches the membranous shell.

10:36Even the bedrooms are separated from the main living space by only a curtain.

10:41And is this your main bedroom?

10:44Yeah.

10:45Welcome.

10:46This is the master bedroom.

10:47Look at the round bed.

10:48Yeah.

10:49Bit of a nod to the glamping thing.

10:52Yeah, yeah, yeah.

10:53Very, very posh glamping, mate.

10:54Yeah.

10:55You're not roughing it in this house.

10:56Yeah, no.

10:57Not exactly.

10:58At all.

10:59And I love the fact that you've got this contrast between the membrane that side, which is really

11:03light and bright.

11:04And when you come in here, you've got this amazing timber cladding.

11:07Yes.

11:08It's just arching over the entire space.

11:09It just softens it a little bit, doesn't it?

11:11It does.

11:12It does feel like a different space.

11:15It's a unusual house to live in, isn't it?

11:16There's not much privacy.

11:17There's not much privacy, but we've learnt to love it.

11:20But you've got to adapt, haven't you?

11:21Yeah.

11:22On the barrier, you do end up with quite colourful people because it is a different environment.

11:34There's no reticulated electricity, no reticulated sewerage.

11:37You're responsible for your own water.

11:40So you get a lot of resourceful people and people who do things, you know, in a different

11:45way.

11:46Yeah.

11:47You're thinking differently.

11:48Yeah.

11:49You're living differently.

11:50And when you're in your house, you want it to feel different to what your city house

11:55might feel like.

11:56That's right.

11:57It's a testament to the locals that they so readily embrace challenges that many mainlanders

12:03would consider a roadblock.

12:07But from where I'm standing, that freedom seems to foster a real sense of individuality

12:13in their design.

12:17George, come into the en suite.

12:19Oh, that's amazing.

12:20Which opens up to the rear of the property.

12:32Oh, that's not a bad view at all, is it?

12:36Yeah.

12:37And this is basically your bathroom window, but with no glass in it.

12:38That's right.

12:39Completely open to the elements.

12:40Yeah.

12:41Yeah.

12:42I love the contrast between the front of the building and the back.

12:58The front's all about glass and the curves and the membrane and very, very light and delicate.

13:03And then the back is very vertical, very solid.

13:06Yeah.

13:07It's a complete contrast.

13:08Yeah, that's right.

13:09And you don't really have the exposed steel here.

13:10No, no, everything's covered up.

13:11You're right.

13:12It just seems like it's one of those buildings that seems completely different to everything

13:26around it, but it's still massively connected with landscape, nature and the elements.

13:32Yeah.

13:33You feel so protected in this house.

13:39And the big idea for this building is obviously that beautiful shell-like curve, but you have

13:49to follow those big ideas through to the smallest detail.

13:52And this staircase nails it.

13:54It's a beautiful sweeping curve that opens out as you go down the stairs.

14:00It's a feat of structural engineering.

14:02You've got steel work, lightweight aluminium.

14:04But what I love most about it is this very delicate, gentle touch of the curved wall.

14:13The whole thing just looks light and can't believe it.

14:20I love this house so much.

14:23It's a testament to architectural ingenuity, engineering precision, and it demonstrates brave,

14:30bold design thinking on a remote wild island.

14:45Standing guard off New Zealand's eastern coastline is the stunningly unspoiled oasis that is Great

14:52Barrier Island.

14:55And settled among these vistas, there are some wonderfully eccentric and eclectic characters.

15:05It's busy.

15:07From all over the world.

15:12Hi, are you Ola?

15:13Hello George, how are you?

15:14Welcome to The Courage.

15:15Lovely to meet you, how are you?

15:16I'm very well, thank you.

15:17Oh, this is great.

15:18Oh, thank you.

15:19What a wonderful pub.

15:20What we love about it is that it's the real McCoy.

15:22You know, it could be the kind of pub you'd find in any little town and village in Ireland.

15:26And this used to be a house?

15:27Is that right?

15:28Yeah.

15:29It's probably the oldest house on the island.

15:31From when do you think?

15:32Built around 1890.

15:331890?

15:34Yes.

15:35So I think with these old buildings, you're merely the custodian for your time with them.

15:38Absolutely.

15:39And you just try and elevate them and pass them on in good shape.

15:42Absolutely.

15:43Well, I can't wait to find out your story.

15:45Yeah.

15:46It's a good story.

15:47Can I have a pint of Guinness?

15:48Certainly.

15:49I'd love to pour you a pint of Guinness.

15:52An Irish pub isn't just a place to enjoy your pint.

15:55It's a cornerstone of community life.

15:59And as the head publican, Ola has a responsibility to uphold the integrity of those rich Irish traditions.

16:10And with all our sights, we get a little shamrock on the top.

16:13Look at that, a little shamrock.

16:15Soon day, the world will come with a drink of sugar and tea and rock.

16:20One day, when the talking is done, we'll take all the land gold.

16:29How old man did you arrive on Great Barrier?

16:31I was on holidays in Bermuda visiting a friend of mine.

16:35And I met this New Zealand boatbuilder.

16:37And he told me about this wonderful paradise island that was the most beautiful place in the world.

16:42And I said, well, I better go and have a look.

16:44And you came here?

16:45About 25 years ago.

16:46And I've lived most of my life here on Great Barrier since.

16:51It's an unusual kind of place.

16:53Very few of us have extended connections here.

16:56So, therefore, it's a very special little community.

16:59Everybody looks out for everybody.

17:00They're fabulous.

17:01And, you know, if somebody had told me that I would live on an off-grid island without power or running water or mod cons, I would have said, you've got to be joking.

17:11But it was a big change.

17:12But I loved it.

17:13Off-grid, running a pub.

17:15Totally off-grid.

17:16How does that work?

17:17We are actually the only solar-powered Irish pub in the world.

17:21Is that official?

17:22That's official.

17:23Our neighbour, Peter Blackwell, who is one of the pioneering families, and he's made this incredible investment to create a little mini-grid.

17:32And he supplies us with power.

17:34On a busy night, we feed up to 300 people a night here.

17:39So it's a busy pub.

17:40In the past, we would have run a big smelly diesel generator for 16 or 18 hours a day.

17:45Now what you hear is, you can hear the cacas, you see the bird life, you see, you know, all kinds of things happening here.

17:55It's really amazing.

17:56It's a wonderful collaboration.

17:58So if the power runs out, and the Guinness is rubbish, it's his fault.

18:04It's his fault.

18:05It's definitely not mine.

18:07I love that.

18:08Well, thanks for sharing that story.

18:09That's fantastic.

18:10You're welcome.

18:11And we should definitely toast the fact that you are the only off-grid, solar-powered, Irish pub...

18:17In the world.

18:18In the world.

18:19That's it.

18:20Cheers.

18:21Cheers.

18:22Before the luxuries of tap beers and solar panels, people out here were living off the land.

18:34Settling in areas like Tryphena, the location of my next wild home.

18:43Years ago, this island was established as a place where people could escape their normal life, unplug and go off-grid.

18:51That still remains true today.

18:54I'm about to meet Roger, a long-term resident who did just that and built himself a very unique house.

19:02Roger, how are you?

19:16Very well, thank you.

19:17Lovely to see you, sir.

19:19How did it all come about?

19:20This is fabulous.

19:23How did it all come about?

19:36In 1972, a group of seven of us bought this piece of land.

19:44It's 105 and a half acres.

19:47And that was for you all to live together?

19:49That was what we thought we were going to do, but at that point we were all very young.

19:52So by the time some of us came to actually live here, we had children underway and all that sort of thing.

20:00Things changed.

20:00Things changed, yeah.

20:01In a nice way, it all feels a bit hippie.

20:06Yeah, a lot of people would see it that way.

20:09For us, I think what we really wanted to be was pioneers.

20:15And why a circular house?

20:17The circles started out as just an idea, a figment of my imagination.

20:22And you'd never built a house for yourself before?

20:24When I designed it, I'd never done any building at all.

20:27So I actually got a job for three different builders, when then I realised that I should never have done it in the first place.

20:33Why?

20:34Because I sort of realised that I was faced with all these complications that previously I'd been kind of gung-ho about.

20:42Just love that you say, I like circles, I'm young, I've never built anything like this before.

20:48That simple?

20:50Yeah, all of us both, yeah.

20:52Not simple to build.

20:54Can we have a look inside?

20:54Sure.

20:55Come on, come on.

20:59Roger, it's beautiful.

21:04What a gorgeous, gorgeous space that is.

21:08I love that skyline.

21:11I can see why you fell in love with circles.

21:15You're kind of embraced by the architecture.

21:17The hub of the home, this central circular space has been designed to invite a sense of privacy, while still celebrating those expansive views out to the Horaki Gulf.

21:31Did you build everything?

21:37Yes.

21:38Everything?

21:39Yes.

21:39This area is pretty unconventional.

21:42You know, it's all built out of six foot twos on the walls and the tapered ceiling pieces, six foot twos cut diagonally and everything has been toned and grooved.

21:53There are 180 individual lengths of timber that make up this spectacular conical ceiling.

22:03Constructed back in 1975, Roger designed and built this rather complicated feature completely solo.

22:13Bringing it to life in just a few short days.

22:20All of this, essentially, is only 50 millimetres thick.

22:26It's just 50 millimetres thick?

22:28All of it.

22:28And then on the outside of that, we put the stucco, which is about 20-25 millimetres.

22:34Yes.

22:35So it's very thin.

22:36It is.

22:37Yeah.

22:38But this is a building that must get battered by the elements.

22:40It's incredibly strong.

22:41We've had all kinds of cyclones come through here and it's never moved at all.

22:46Well, it's strong because of its form.

22:48Yeah.

22:49Because you can imagine when it's been hit by the winds, the winds are just going round the circle rather than hitting a flat face.

22:54That's very clever.

22:55Well, and luck.

22:57Definitely luck.

22:59I have so many kind of mixed feelings when I stand in the space because it harks back to many different forms of architecture.

23:07I mean, obviously, the yurt is an obvious one, but I could be standing in a mini chapel.

23:13Do you know what I mean?

23:14When you've got the coloured glass above and it's all in white, it feels like it could be a very spiritual space.

23:22That definitely wouldn't have come from me.

23:24Despite the lack of divine intervention, Roger managed to design and build not just one circular space, but three.

23:39One circle dedicated to living and dining and two more as the home's original bedrooms.

23:46Oh, what a difference.

23:49So was this the original look in all three circles?

23:55Yes, it was.

23:56Just polyurethane that was how we started.

24:01It's gorgeous because you get all the knots and all the grain.

24:04It just feels a little bit warmer.

24:08And what's this room?

24:10This was the master bedroom.

24:12So you had the kids in that circle.

24:15Yeah.

24:16This was your main bedroom.

24:17Yeah.

24:18Beautiful bedroom.

24:19With a growing young family and a promising career as a pretty handy builder, you'd think Roger would have stopped there.

24:29Well, you'd be wrong.

24:32By the mid-1980s, Roger's family had outgrown their humble three circle sanctuary on Great Barrier Islands.

24:49So he undertook the new challenge of a circular extension, an additional bedroom, bathroom and study, as well as an entire guest wing down this set of naturally curved stairs.

25:06It's a staircase down to a whole other world of accommodation.

25:12Crikey!

25:13Another bedroom in here.

25:16Loads of storage.

25:18And then another bedroom.

25:21I'll tell you what, this house is unbelievably deceptive.

25:27It's way bigger than I thought.

25:29I think it's absolutely beautiful that Roger's developed and expanded the house, made it grow as his family grew.

25:38But this life is worlds apart from where Roger started.

25:50Island life in the 1970s, it must have been more challenging.

25:54When we first came here, we had kerosene lamps for lighting and then we got a really, really small solar panel, which was, I think it was 80 watts, something like that.

26:06And we could run a little black and white TV until the screen kind of disappeared into nothing.

26:11And it was quite good because we could then say to the kids, you know, you've got to go to bed, the PBs run out.

26:16So you even had a little solar panel back then?

26:18Yeah, that was probably about the very early 80s, we got the very first solar panel.

26:22So you were even solar pioneers back then?

26:25Yeah, I guess we had the need, you know, the people didn't.

26:31How easy was it to build a structure like this on an island?

26:36When we first came, there was no road for a start, bare bit of land really.

26:42So getting the materials here was actually a major problem.

26:47We brought a barge, moved it here in 1976, and it came in round to Prairie Bay because it was blowing a mean southwester.

26:58We ended up for all of the materials in Prairie Bay and then had to find a way to get it back around here into Schoena Bay.

27:05And then I met this fellow who had a scowl, he'd just built this steel scowl.

27:14He then was able to bring it in down to the bay, just down here.

27:19I had already built a flying fox across that bay, and then from there we had a flying fox that went up to the...

27:25I know this sounds far-fetched, but this is actually what happened.

27:28So we built these two flying foxes, and then from that ridge had a trolley on a...

27:37all done with a capstan on a motor.

27:40It's quite a feat of logistical engineering, isn't it?

27:46It was a cooperative effort. There were a few of us involved in it, and I'm really grateful for the help that I got.

27:52Everybody seems to help, support and even protect each other.

27:56Yeah. There is definitely an element to that, yeah.

28:02I can see how much of an impact this community has on its residents.

28:07But I can tell that for Roger, this place means so much more.

28:13That, to me, just says everything about why you're here.

28:18Yeah.

28:19It's magnificent. I absolutely love it.

28:33A lot of people came to Great Barrier for a one-week holiday, and then ended up coming back and living the rest of their lives here.

28:39And that is a regular story, that you'll keep hearing it.

28:42There's a lot of us, for whom it does. It's just got that pull.

28:47I didn't grow up here, but this is my... this is my home.

28:55Yeah.

28:57And I love the way you call it magnificence.

29:01I couldn't agree more.

29:11I'm beginning to understand that out here,

29:14there's a much deeper level of connection to the land and to the sea.

29:22And to find out just where that comes from,

29:24I'm heading north to one of the island's first true settlements.

29:28Kaua Marae.

29:38I'm about to meet Rodney, who's one of the local Maori elders.

29:44To find out what the island means to him and his people.

29:50But I'm also here to explore the architecture and design of their meeting house,

29:56which is the central part of the Marae.

30:00Kaua Marae.

30:08Rodney, how are you?

30:10I'm very good, thank you.

30:12Pleasure to meet you.

30:14Kaua Marae.

30:16Welcome to Hea Te Whare Tuponoa Rehua.

30:19Thank you so much.

30:20To our tribal meeting house.

30:26And it's a very, very important symbolic building isn't it?

30:28Oh, it is.

30:31Our tribal estate sort of tells people who we are as indigenous people.

30:37And your family connections go back a long way here.

30:41Beyond the 1250s.

30:42Oh my word.

30:43Beyond the 1250s.

30:44That's incredible.

30:48Guided by the wildlife,

30:51the ocean current,

30:52and the stars,

30:56Maori were among the first to voyage across the Pacific

30:59in traditional boards.

31:02Known as waka.

31:06When they got into new land,

31:09the waka was flipped upside down

31:11and created the chief's house.

31:16As you can see, an upside down waka.

31:19I love that, the upside down waka.

31:21Absolutely beautiful.

31:26This is the centre of the waka.

31:32These are books.

31:34That's what they are.

31:36It tells a story.

31:37You know, that connects us backwards in time.

31:41But people have to have an understanding of how to read it.

31:48I'm getting the sense that this is so much more

31:50than a place of shelter to Rodney and his people.

31:55Its identity.

31:57Its memory.

31:59Its heart.

32:00It's beautiful.

32:01The carvings are magnificent.

32:06The name of our house is Arehua.

32:10If you have a look on the side,

32:12he's got a patu beside him.

32:13So like a protector.

32:14Yeah.

32:15Definitely.

32:16A kaitiaki.

32:17A guardian.

32:18And I just love the way he's looking out to the bay.

32:23Our guardians come from the sea.

32:28On the apex, that carving is called tukaiaya.

32:33It's a sea eagle.

32:35So our airspace is taken care of with tukaiaya.

32:39The chains of islands are taken care of with the tuatara.

32:43The tuatara comes out of the age of the dinosaur.

32:47It's most probably one of the only dinosaurs that are left.

32:49The tuatara can bask on the rocks and then up on the beach,

32:54but can also swim to other islands.

32:58So that gives us a connection to the chains of islands that are around us.

33:04And the sea space is taken care of around te mauri or the shark.

33:11Al Tupanen that used to call him for guidance.

33:17Normally when he revealed himself, a storm's coming.

33:21It's time to come in.

33:27It's quite incredible.

33:28For anyone to come and see a building like this,

33:30they would think it's a very simple form,

33:33very beautifully made.

33:34But the depth of the symbolism and the storytelling,

33:37the connections to your family and the land and the sea and the sky.

33:43It's phenomenal, isn't it?

33:44There is no one older on this island than us.

33:53Our children and our grandchildren

33:56will have an identity around who they are

34:00because of their tribal makeup of their tribal house.

34:08I feel an immense sense of gratitude to Rodney

34:12for sharing the history of his ancestors with me.

34:15A powerful and symbolic home

34:19built upon foundations of bravery, community

34:23and of respect for the natural world.

34:25Medlands Beach is a growing community of homes,

34:40located on the eastern front of this spectacularly remote island paradise,

34:46Great Barrier Island.

34:47It may look like a paradise postcard,

34:51but its proximity to the ocean means that the weather here

34:55is ruthlessly unpredictable.

35:02But often the toughest conditions can help to forge the toughest of homes.

35:08So today is my last day on our tear, Great Barrier.

35:13I'm on my way to meet Stuart,

35:15who's the architect for an award-winning house

35:18that has a unique spin on the traditional courtyard.

35:25A finalist in the New Zealand Home of the Year Awards

35:28and winner of the Best Interior for 2019,

35:31this property is set back well beyond the boundaries of the beach.

35:37This is it.

35:39Just tucked away at the end of a long driveway.

35:45A four-bedroom, three-bathroom family hideaway

35:49that on first inspection looks more like a beautifully designed military complex

35:55than a high-design home.

35:58Very nice.

36:02Stuart!

36:04G'day.

36:05Lovely to meet you.

36:06Nice to meet you too.

36:07What a fantastic house.

36:09That is a pure crisp piece of elegant modernism right there.

36:13You are absolutely right.

36:15Very good description.

36:17Stuart Gardine is the ambitious architect

36:20who was commissioned to design this place,

36:23aptly known as the Pinwheel House.

36:27You would never, ever know it was here as I came down that driveway.

36:31Yeah, I think they do sort of say that, you know,

36:33the best houses are always the ones you can't see from the road,

36:36you know, down the leafy lane.

36:40In this remote, wild location,

36:43these houses can get battered by the elements, can't they?

36:46Yeah, well, it's called Great Barrier for a reason, you know,

36:49because it is the island which actually sort of shelters Auckland

36:52from the easterlies, you know, the easterly storms.

36:54In a way, that's probably why most of the houses here

36:58are actually set back behind the juniors.

37:00We put a lot of time into the composition of it.

37:04When you're not here, you've got to close it up.

37:07When you are here, it's got to be very open.

37:08From the outside, this house is an absolute fortress.

37:17Large stack of shutters keep out any hint of unwanted rain, wind or sun.

37:24These hatches and the extended timber cladding are also designed

37:30to protect some of the more exposed window panes.

37:34And even though you can slide all the doors closed,

37:38pull all the shutters down, literally batten down the hatches,

37:41I'm assuming the whole thing just opens up.

37:44Yeah, you're absolutely right.

37:45Come on, let's have a look.

37:51Oh, Stuart, this is absolutely beautiful.

37:56The lower floor is almost like a locked down timber vault.

38:01The play between the white ash and the warm indirect light

38:06gives it this sort of welcoming glow.

38:09I see what you mean about everything being closed up.

38:14You've got these beautiful shutters that make it feel very, very protected.

38:18What was the big architectural concept?

38:21Well, ironically, during the design phase, you know,

38:24we called it the courtyard house because that's what our clients asked us for,

38:28to do a conventional courtyard house.

38:31We very quickly realised it was impossible.

38:34The site can only allow 15% site coverage.

38:37And so it was almost impossible to get a four bedroom house

38:41on a piece of land this size.

38:44So how on earth have you designed a courtyard house

38:47without a conventional courtyard in the middle?

38:50We ended up inverting it.

38:52We put the courtyards on the outside.

38:54Instead of having a single courtyard, we've been able to get four.

38:56We've been able to get four.

39:05Now that is fantastic.

39:11So this is courtyard number one.

39:13Courtyard number one on the west side.

39:15So it's lovely in the evening.

39:17So this is the next courtyard.

39:22A little bit more informal, you know, the outdoor shower, the barbecue, the laundry.

39:28And then another courtyard.

39:32And this one feels different to the others because you've got this beautiful curve at the end of the garden.

39:41It contrasts beautifully with the kind of cubed form of the house.

39:45It feels like there's a centre to the house and everything else kind of spins around.

39:54Which is the pinwheel.

39:56Is that why you call it the pinwheel?

39:59Well, we had called it the courtyard house.

40:01And then of course some people said, well, it's actually a pinwheel, isn't it?

40:05The pinwheel actually creates the asymmetry, you know, within this very simple rectangular sort of form.

40:11Gives it a dynamic feel.

40:15So let me try and find the absolute centre point of the plan.

40:19I'm guessing, Stuart, it's somewhere...

40:23Yeah, that's it.

40:25There. Centred with the fireplace.

40:28Perfectly balanced.

40:30And then everything spins and rotates around it.

40:35So you've got courtyard one, two, three, four.

40:42Beautifully done.

40:43Yeah, it's extraordinarily simple.

40:48When you experience this house from the lower level, you can see that it has the ability to completely close off from the outside world.

40:58But as you venture up these beautiful timber stairs, it's the complete opposite.

41:07Oh, what a space.

41:11The whole place is exploding with natural light.

41:19You've got top light over there.

41:25Top light over the staircase.

41:27Just illuminating those corners.

41:35And this is all American white ash.

41:38It's even been lightened even more to make it feel more peaceful, calm and serene.

41:43Not for one second do I feel disconnected from the outside world.

41:51The centre point again is there and you've got view, view, view.

41:57And all the bedrooms just rotate off this room.

42:04Let's check out the bedrooms.

42:09Beautiful full height doors, minimal handles.

42:13And what I love is that every bedroom is the same.

42:18There's no hierarchy.

42:19There's no master bedroom suite with an ensuite bathroom or shower room.

42:24It's four bedrooms, all identical, two shower rooms and that's it.

42:32A small amount of storage.

42:36Look at that.

42:37All felt lined.

42:39And then a long, long minimal bench for you to put your suitcases when you arrive.

42:45Even the hanging rail is simple and effortless.

42:52There's just something very minimal, Scandinavian, even Japanese about this house.

43:06And then this is one of the simplest shower rooms ever.

43:15Viewer to that courtyard.

43:18And look at this for a shower.

43:21Oh my word.

43:26That is beautiful.

43:31You've got this amazing contrast between all the other rooms being in timber.

43:36And then you step into this otherworldly shower space,

43:40which is in this brilliant white Italian Carrera marble.

43:45The attention to detail is stunning.

43:47Even the marble has been laid in this vertical orientation.

43:51And what that does, it just draws your eye up to that magnificent skylight.

44:00Who would have thought that a small shower space like this could be so architecturally powerful?

44:06By rethinking the classic courtyard layout, the pinwheel house doesn't hide from the island's wild character.

44:18It celebrates it.

44:19During my time on out here, there's been one very powerful, overwhelming feeling that I've had since I arrived.

44:34And that's one of protection.

44:42A great barrier was even given its name because it protects the mainland.

44:47I've seen some beautiful, resilient homes that have protected those that live in them from the extreme elements.

44:53That's fantastic, Ash.

44:55And then there's the people themselves.

45:00Supporting and protecting each other every single day, no matter what island life throws at them.

45:06Let's go.

45:17All right.

45:20All right.

45:22All right.

45:23Transcription by CastingWords

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