When architect Richard Furze was approached by a design-conscious husband and wife for his professional opinion on a site in Ōmokoroa in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand his immediate response was, “Yeah, this is great.” Although it was a reasonably compact site it wasn’t a tight parcel of land you come to expect with inner-city living, it had an established hedge and a nice feel to it.
Mike and Pauline, who had run a high-end lighting business in Auckland’s eastern suburbs, wanted a home that wasn’t huge, good for entertaining, was low stress, warm and cool, and because they were retiring, had a modest budget. It also had to have a decent garage for homeowner Mike’s toys, his ute, and a workshop to tinker in.
