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#drama #cdrama #romantic
#drama #cdrama #romantic #love #movie #shortdrama
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Short filmTranscript
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'll 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 like 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 halls.
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.
02:27And by solitude.
02:29And to really crank the anxiety up a notch, I'm travelling there, on this tiny plane.
02:41I'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?
03:49Because it's going to be a bit bumpy.
03:59I 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.
04:23That is one heck of a house.
04:25A tented structure is the last thing I expected to see on this weather-beaten island.
04:37But there's clearly a story behind it.
04:39And I'm hoping owner Simon can help me understand the method behind the madness.
04:46Simon.
04:47George, welcome.
04:48Very nice to meet you.
04:49How are you?
04:50Yeah, pleased to meet you, sir.
04:51I'm great, thanks. How are you?
04:52Very, very, very happy to be here.
04:54Welcome 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.
05:11A two-bedroom, two-bathroom build with one very intriguing backstory.
05:21I mean, that is one incredible position to look at the building.
05:25It'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. A lot of people do ask, well, does it open up right now?
06:05Only in emergency.
06:06But 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.
06:16Those 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 it straight away?
06:38Yeah, we bought it on the same day.
06:39Did you?
06:40Did you?
06:41Basically, yeah.
06:42I 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, you know, 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.
08:15You've zoned everything.
08:16Yeah.
08:17So 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.
08:31You'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.
09:07You can feel the tension.
09:08My God!
09:11When I hit that there, I can hear the sound going all the way through the fabric and reverberating
09:17around 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.
09:37You've got these kind of big steel sections running through in these channels,
09:41which then connects to the bottom of those beautiful ribbed skeletal pieces of steel,
09:46and 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.
09:58And it just feels like you're in an elegant piece of engineering.
10:04Can we wander up your staircase?
10:05Yeah, please come out and see us.
10:10What a position to stand in.
10:13That's fantastic, that.
10:17Absolutely.
10:19Beautiful.
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.
10:43And is this your main bedroom?
10:44Yeah, welcome.
10:45This is the master bedroom.
10:47Look at the round bed.
10:48Yeah.
10:49Bit of a nod to the glamping thing.
10:52Yeah.
10:53Very, very posh glamping, mate.
10:54Yeah.
10:55I mean, you're not roughing it.
10:56Yeah, no, not exactly.
10:57In this house at all.
10:58And I love the fact that you've got this contrast between the membrane that side,
11:02which is really light and bright, and when you come in here, you've got this amazing timber cladding.
11:06Yes.
11:07Just 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.
11:14It's a minuutual house to live in, isn't it?
11:16There's not much privacy.
11:17There's not much privacy.
11:18There's not much privacy, but we've learnt to love it.
11:20But you've got to adapt, haven't you?
11:21Yeah.
11:23On the barrier, you do end up with quite colourful people because it is a different environment.
11:34There's no reticulated electricity, no reticulated sewage.
11:38You're responsible for your own water.
11:41So you get a lot of resourceful people and people who do things, you know, in a different way.
11:47You're thinking differently.
11:49Yeah.
11:50And when you're in your house, you want it to feel different to what your city house might feel like.
11:55That's right.
11:57It's a testament to the locals that they so readily embrace challenges that many mainlanders would consider a roadblock.
12:07But from where I'm standing, that freedom seems to foster a real sense of individuality in their design.
12:17George, come into the ensuite.
12:21Oh, that's amazing.
12:25Which opens up to the rear of the property.
12:32Oh, that's not a bad view at all, is it?
12:35That's all, is it?
12:41And this is basically your bathroom window, but with no glass in it.
12:45That's right.
12:46Completely open to the elements.
12:47Yeah.
12:48I love the contrast between the front of the building and the back. The front's all about glass and the curves and the membrane and very, very light and delicate.
13:04And then the back is very vertical, very solid.
13:07Yeah.
13:09It's a complete contrast.
13:11Yeah, that's right. And you don't really have the exposed steel here.
13:14No, no, everything's covered up.
13:15Yeah.
13:16You're right.
13:22It just seems like it's one of those buildings that seems completely different to everything around it, but it's still massively connected with landscape, nature and the elements.
13:32Yeah.
13:35You feel so protected in this house.
13:42Now the big idea for this building is obviously that beautiful shell-like curve, but you have to follow those big ideas through to the smallest detail.
13:51And this staircase nails it. It's a beautiful sweeping curve that opens out as you go down the stairs.
14:00It's a feat of structural engineering. You've got steel work, lightweight aluminium.
14:05But what I love most about it is this very delicate, gentle touch of the curved wall.
14:13The whole thing just looks light and cantilevered.
14:16I love this house so much. It's a testament to architectural ingenuity, engineering precision, and it demonstrates brave, bold design thinking on a remote wild island.
14:33Standing guard off New Zealand's eastern coastline is the stunningly unspoiled oasis that is Great Barrier Island.
14:54And settled among these vistas, there are some wonderfully eccentric and eclectic characters.
15:01It's busy.
15:07From all over the world.
15:11Hi, are you Ola?
15:12Hello, George. How are you? Welcome to the current.
15:14Lovely to meet you. How are you?
15:15I'm very welcome.
15:17This is great.
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? Is 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.
15:341890.
15:35Yes.
15:36I 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.
15:51An Irish pub isn't just a place to enjoy your pint.
15:55It's a cornerstone of community life.
15:58And as the head publican, Ola has a responsibility to uphold the integrity of those rich Irish traditions.
16:07And with all our friends, we get a little shamrock on the top.
16:12Look at that, a little shamrock.
16:14How in May did you arrive on Great Barrier?
16:31I was on holidays in Bermuda visiting a friend of mine and 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.
17:01They're fabulous.
17:02And, you know, if somebody had told me that I would live on an off-grid island without power
17:07or 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.
17:20Is that official?
17:21That's official.
17:22Our neighbour, Peter Blackwell, who is one of the pioneering families,
17:27and he's made this incredible investment to create a little mini-grid.
17:32And he supplies us with power.
17:33On 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,
17:53all 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.
18:03It's his fault.
18:04It'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,
18:16Irish pub...
18:17In the world.
18:18In the world.
18:19That's it.
18:20Cheers.
18:21Before the luxuries of tap bears and solar panels, people out here were living off the
18:33land, settling 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
18:49life, unplug and go off-grid.
18:52That still remains true today.
18:54I'm about to meet Roger, a long-term resident who did just that and built himself a very
19:00unique house.
19:02Roger, how are you?
19:15Very well, thank you.
19:18Lovely to see you, sir.
19:23This is fabulous.
19:34So how did it all come about?
19:36In 1972, a group of seven of us bought this piece of land.
19:41It's 105 and a half acres.
19:46And 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.
19:53So by the time some of us came to actually live here, we had children underway and all
19:59that sort of thing.
20:00Yeah, things change.
20:01Things change, yeah.
20:02In a nice way, it all feels a bit hippie.
20:07Yeah, 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?
20:16The circles started out as just an idea of pigment in my imagination.
20:22And you'd never built a house for yourself before?
20:25When 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
20:31never have done it in the first place.
20:33Why?
20:34Why?
20:35Because I sort of realised that I was faced with all these complications that previously
20:39I'd been kind of gung-ho about.
20:42I just love that you say, I like circles, I'm young, I've never built anything like this
20:48before.
20:49That simple?
20:50Yeah, all of us both, yeah.
20:52Not simple to build.
20:53Can we have a look inside?
20:54Sure.
20:55Come on.
20:56Roger, it's beautiful.
21:03What a gorgeous, gorgeous space that is.
21:08I love that skylight.
21:11I can see why you fell in love with circles.
21:15You're kind of embraced by the architecture.
21:20The hub of the home, this central circular space has been designed to invite a sense of
21:25privacy, while still celebrating those expansive views out to the Horaki Gulf.
21:32Did you build everything?
21:37Yes.
21:38Everything?
21:39Yes.
21:40This area is pretty unconventional.
21:43It's all built out of 6x2s on the walls and the tapered ceiling pieces are 6x2s cut diagonally
21:51and everything has been toned and grooved.
21:53There are 180 individual lengths of timber that make up this spectacular conical ceiling.
22:06Constructed back in 1975, Roger designed and built this rather complicated feature completely
22:13solo.
22:14Bringing it to life in just a few short days.
22:21All of this essentially is only 50mm thick.
22:26It's just 50mm thick?
22:27All of it.
22:28All of it.
22:29And then on the outside of that, we put the stucco which is about 20-25mm.
22:34So 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.
22:48Because you can imagine when it's been hit by the winds, the winds are just going round
22:51the circle rather than hitting a flat face.
22:54That's very clever.
22:55Well, it hadn't luck.
22:57Definitely luck.
23:00I have so many kind of mixed feelings when I stand in the space because it harks back
23:05to many different forms of architecture.
23:08I mean, obviously the yurt is an obvious one, but I could be standing in a mini chapel.
23:14Do you know what I mean?
23:15When you've got the coloured glass above and it's all in white, it feels like it could
23:20be a very spiritual space.
23:23That definitely wouldn't have come from me.
23:29Despite the lack of divine intervention, Roger managed to design and build not just one
23:35circular space, but three.
23:38One circle dedicated to living and dining and two more as the home's original bedrooms.
23:47Oh, what a difference.
23:53So was this the original look in all three circles?
23:56Yes, it was.
23:57Just polyurethane that was how we started.
23:59It's gorgeous because you get all the knots and all the grain.
24:04It just feels a little bit warmer.
24:09And what's this room?
24:10This was the masterpiece room.
24:12So you had the kids in that circle.
24:15Yeah.
24:16This was your main bedroom.
24:18Yeah.
24:19Beautiful bedroom.
24:20With a growing young family and a promising career as a pretty handy builder, you'd think Roger
24:27would 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
24:47Barrier Islands.
24:48So he undertook the new challenge of a circular extension.
24:53An additional bedroom, bathroom and study, as well as an entire guest wing down this set
25:04of naturally-curved stairs.
25:06It's a staircase down to a whole of the worlds of accommodation.
25:11Crikey!
25:13Another bedroom in here, loads of storage, and then another bedroom.
25:22I'll tell you what, this house is unbelievably deceptive.
25:28It's way bigger than I thought.
25:30I think it's absolutely beautiful that Roger's developed and expanded the house.
25:37Made it grow as his family grew.
25:43But this life is worlds apart from where Roger started.
25:48Island 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,
26:01really small solar panel, which was, I think it was 80 watts, something like that.
26:07And we could run a little black and white TV until the screen kind of disappeared into nothing.
26:12And that was quite good, because we could then say to the kids, you know, you've got to go to bed,
26:15the PV's 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.
26:23So you were even solar pioneers back then?
26:26Yeah, I guess we had the need, you know, the people didn't.
26:29How 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.
26:46I 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 with all of the materials in Prairie Bay and then had to find a way to get it back around here into Schooner Bay.
27:05And then I met this fellow who had a scow, he'd just built this steel scow.
27:15He then was able to bring it in down to the bay, just down here.
27:20I had already built a flying fox across that bay, and then from there we had a flying fox that went up to the...
27:26I know this sounds far-fetched, but this is actually what happened.
27:32So we built these two flying foxes, and then from that ridge had a trolley, all done with a capstan on the motor.
27:41It's quite a feat of logistical engineering, isn't it?
27:47It was a cooperative effort. There were a few of us involved in it, and I'm really grateful for the help that I got.
27:53Everybody seems to help, support and even protect each other.
27:57Yeah. There is definitely an element of it, 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.
28:12That, to me, just says everything about why you're here.
28:18Yeah.
28:19What's it like living here on the JLA today?
28:27It'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.
28:40And that is a regular story that you'll keep hearing it.
28:43There's a lot of us for him that does.
28:45It's just got that pull.
28:48I didn't grow up here, but this is my home.
28:53Yeah.
28:58And I love the way you call it magnificence.
29:02I couldn't agree more.
29:12I'm beginning to understand that out here, there's a much deeper level of connection to the land and to the sea.
29:19And to find out just where that comes from, I'm heading north to one of the island's first true settlements, Kaua Marae.
29:42I'm about to meet Rodney, who's one of the local Maori elders.
29:46To find out what the island means to him and his people.
29:53But I'm also here to explore the architecture and design of their meeting house, which is the central part of the Marae.
30:01How me?
30:02How me?
30:03How me?
30:04How me?
30:05How me?
30:06How me?
30:07How me?
30:08How me?
30:09Rodney, how are you?
30:10I'm very good, thank you.
30:11Pleasure to meet you.
30:12Pleasure to meet you.
30:13How me?
30:14How me?
30:15How me?
30:16How me?
30:17Welcome to He Atawhare Tuponoa Rehua.
30:19Thank you so much.
30:20To our tribal meeting house.
30:22And it's a very, very important symbolic building, isn't it?
30:29Oh, it is.
30:30Our 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 top 50s.
30:42Oh, my word.
30:43Beyond the top 50s.
30:44That's incredible.
30:48Guided by the wildlife, the ocean current, and the stars, Maori were among the first to
30:58voyage across the Pacific in traditional boards.
31:03Known as waka.
31:07When they got into new land, the waka was flipped upside down and created the chief's house.
31:16As you can see, an upside down waka.
31:20I love that, the upside down waka.
31:24Absolutely beautiful.
31:27This is the centre of the waka.
31:32These are books.
31:34That's what they are.
31:36It tells a story, you 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 than a place of shelter to Rodney and his people.
31:55Its identity, its memory, its heart.
32:04It's beautiful.
32:05The carvings are magnificent.
32:07The name of our house is Arehua.
32:10If you have a look on the side, he's got a patu beside him.
32:14So like a protector?
32:15Yeah.
32:16Definitely.
32:17A kautiaki, a 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.
32:40The chains of islands are taken care of with the tuatara.
32:44The tuatara comes out of the age of the dinosaur.
32:47It's most probably one of the only dinosaurs that are left.
32:50The tuatara can bask on the rocks and then up on the beach, but 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.
33:11Or the shark.
33:13Our tūpunin 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 for anyone to come and see a building like this.
33:31They would think it's a very simple form, very beautifully made.
33:35But the depth of the symbolism and the storytelling, the connections to your family and the land and the sea and the sky.
33:43It's phenomenal, isn't it?
33:45There is no one older on this island than us.
33:53Our children and our grandchildren will have an identity around who they are.
34:01Because of their tribal make-up of their tribal house.
34:08I feel an immense sense of gratitude to Rodney for sharing the history of his ancestors with me.
34:16A powerful and symbolic home, built upon foundations of bravery, community and of respect for the natural worlds.
34:26Medlands Beach is a growing community of homes, located on the eastern front of this spectacularly remote island paradise.
34:45Great Barrier Island.
34:49It may look like a paradise postcard, but its proximity to the ocean means that the weather here is ruthlessly unpredictable.
34:58But often the toughest conditions can help to forge the toughest of homes.
35:11So today is my last day on our tear-grade barrier.
35:13I'm on my way to meet Stuart, who's the architect for an award-winning house that has a unique spin on the traditional courtyard.
35:22A finalist in the New Zealand Home of the Year Awards and winner of the best interior for 2019, this property is set back well beyond the boundaries of the beach.
35:37This is it, just tucked away at the end of a long driveway.
35:45A four-bedroom, three-bathroom family hideaway, that on first inspection looks more like a beautifully designed military complex than a high-design home.
35:59Very nice.
36:03Stuart!
36:05G'day.
36:06Lovely to meet you.
36:07Nice to meet you too.
36:08What 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 who was commissioned to design this place, aptly known as the Pinwheel House.
36:28You 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, the best houses are always the ones you can't see from the road, you know, down the leafy lane.
36:41In this remote, wild location, these houses can get battered by the elements, can't they?
36:46Yeah, well, it's a concrete barrier for a reason, you know, because it is the island which actually sort of shelters Auckland from the easterlies, you know, the easterly storms.
36:54In a way, that's probably why most of the houses here are actually set back behind the dunes.
37:01We put a lot of time into the composition of it.
37:05When you're not here, you've got to close it up.
37:07When you are here, it's got to be very open.
37:09From the outside, this house is an absolute fortress.
37:20Large stack of shutters keep out any hint of unwanted rain, wind or sun.
37:25These hatches and the extended timber cladding are also designed to protect some of the more exposed window panes.
37:35And even though you can slide all the doors closed, pull all the shutters down, literally batten down the hatches, I'm assuming the whole thing just opens up.
37:43Yeah, you're absolutely right.
37:45Come on, let's have a look.
37:46Oh, Stuart, this is absolutely beautiful.
37:57The lower floor is almost like a locked down timber vault.
38:02The play between the white ash and the warm indirect light gives 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.
38:19What was the big architectural concept?
38:22Well, ironically, during the design phase, you know, we called it the courtyard house because that's what our clients asked us for, to do a conventional courtyard house.
38:32We very quickly realised it was impossible.
38:34The site can only allow 15% site coverage, and so it was almost impossible to get a four bedroom house on a piece of land this size.
38:45So how on earth have you designed a courtyard house without a conventional courtyard in the middle?
38:51Well, we ended up inverting it.
38:53We put the courtyards on the outside.
38:55Instead of having a single courtyard, we've been able to get four.
38:57Now that is fantastic.
39:12So this is courtyard number one?
39:14Courtyard number one on the west side.
39:16So it's lovely in the evening.
39:20So this is the next courtyard.
39:22A little bit more informal, you know, the outdoor shower, the barbecue, the laundry.
39:29And then another courtyard.
39:33And 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.
39:55Which is the pinwheel.
39:57Is that why you call it the pinwheel?
40:00Well, we have called it the courtyard house.
40:02And then of course some people say, 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.
40:20I'm guessing, Stuart, it's somewhere...
40:23Yeah, that's it.
40:25There.
40:26Centred with the fireplace.
40:28Perfectly balanced.
40:30And then everything spins and rotates around it.
40:32So you've got courtyard one, two, three, four.
40:42Beautifully done.
40:44Yeah, it's extraordinarily simple.
40:49When you experience this house from the lower level, you can see that it has the ability to completely close off from the outside worlds.
40:58But as you venture up these beautiful timber stairs, it's the complete opposite.
41:07Oh, what a space.
41:16The whole place is exploding with natural light.
41:19You've got top light over there.
41:25Top light over the staircase.
41:28Just 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.
41:46Not for one second do I feel disconnected from the outside worlds.
41:51The centre point again is there and you've got view, view, view.
41:58And all the bedrooms just rotate off this room.
42:08Let's check out the bedrooms.
42:13Beautiful full height doors, minimal handles.
42:17And what I love is that every bedroom is the same.
42:19There's no hierarchy, there's no master bedroom suite with an ensuite bathroom or shower room.
42:27It's four bedrooms, all identical, two shower rooms and that's it.
42:33A small amount of storage.
42:36Look at that, all felt lined.
42:38And then a long, long minimal bench for you to put your suitcases when you arrive.
42:46Even the hanging rail is simple and effortless.
42:53It's just something very minimal, Scandinavian, even Japanese about this house.
42:59And then this is one of the simplest shower rooms ever.
43:16Via to that courtyard.
43:18And look at this for a shower.
43:21Oh my word.
43:23Two words.
43:27That is beautiful.
43:32You've got this amazing contrast between all the other rooms being in timber.
43:37And then you step into this otherworldly shower space,
43:41which is in this brilliant white Italian Carrera marble.
43:45The attention to detail is stunning.
43:48Even the marble has been laid in this vertical orientation.
43:52And what that does, it just draws your eye up to that magnificent skylight.
44:01Who would have thought that a small shower space like this could be so architecturally powerful?
44:12By rethinking the classic courtyard layout,
44:15the Pinwheel House doesn't hide from the island's wild character.
44:19It celebrates it.
44:21During my time on out here, there's been one very powerful, overwhelming feeling that I've had since I arrived.
44:35And that's one of protection.
44:43A 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, that.
44:56And then there's the people themselves.
44:58Supporting and protecting each other every single day, no matter what island life throws at them.
45:07When can I move?
45:23More same time next week.
45:25Now, not only is Grand Designs back, but now Kevin and superfan Greg James are taking apart each episode in Grand Designs Deconstructed.
45:32It's streaming now.
45:33Back to tonight and on the way, heart-stopping tasks with a side of soup and Taskmaster.
45:37Track in Grand Designs Deconstructed Nottingham
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