Simple is good, say Clyde couple Bill Nagle and Corinne Ebisu, who have shunned conventional architecture to honour the principle of "enough'' in their small Central Otago home. Pam Jones talks to the couple about the construction and philosophy behind the house on Treestone Far.
Clyde man Bill Nagle first experienced living simply when he was working as a volunteer in Papua New Guinea almost 40 years ago.
The house provided for him had no electricity or running water, and was built mainly from bush materials which were easily replaced when they decomposed.
It felt a bit like the tramping huts mountain-loving Bill was used to.
Ten years later, when he returned to Papua New Guinea for the third time, newly married to Corinne Ebisu, the house they were provided with was built from permanent materials and had electricity, running water and a flush toilet.
That worked well, until there was a power cut for four months, and living in a house which was designed around and relied on an external energy was far harder than living in the bush house of 10 years before.
The experience taught them valuable lessons and convinced Bill and Corinne that most modern house designs and building techniques were contributing needlessly to over-exploitation of resources and adding to climate change issues.
So when it came to contemplating the best type of home for their Treestone Far property above Clyde almost 20 years later, Bill and Corinne had firm views of what they wanted.
Something small, off-the-grid, with a strong connection to rural New Zealand: these were the things that mattered, and they had a kindred spirit in friend and architect Max Wild, of Arrowtown.
Bill and Corinne had met Wild, an award-winning architect with similar concerns about sustainable use of the world's resources, through Central Otago Treegrowers in the early 1990s.
As their friendship grew, Wild offered to design their house, and the three met on site at Bill and Corinne's property in 1996, with the couple having already decided a mudbrick cottage would fit the bill perfectly.
Wild, who, unbeknownst to Bill and Corinne had already gone to the site on his own and inspected it, considered their proposal and then came up with one of his own.
"He said: ‘You don't need a mudbrick cottage, you need a tramping hut','' said Bill, "and he pretty much sketched it out right then and there.''
Wild proposed a tramping hut-style house based on the size and shape of a farm implement shed, or haybarn.
It was to incorporate Zincalume (modern corrugated roofing or cladding), but as Bill and Corinne came to terms with the new design they made an important request.
"We said that's OK, but can we have a little bit of wood and a little bit of mud in it.''
And so began the final design and then construction of their simple-living house, which challenges many of the notions of conventional architecture.
There were eight main design considerations for the house: to have rural integrity; to be off the grid and use both active and passive solar energy; to be easy to heat in winter; be easy to cool in summer; use as much wood as possible; be protected from the cold southerly winds; have a conservatory for heating, light and growing plants; and to take advantage of the view.
All were met with finesse, and the resulting house, built in 1997 - mostly of wood, with Zincalume on the south and west walls - still ticks the boxes today for what Bill and Corinne wanted and required.
"I'm really happy here,'' Corinne said.
"I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather live.''
The 93sq m house (which cost about $1000 per square metre) is designed around the changes in Central Otago's weather and is an off-grid house that uses solar electricity with battery storage and solar water heating.
The house has plywood portals as its main structural element and is primarily one large room, with a mezzanine bedroom (and a 5sq m "moon room'' beside it, where you can pull out the beanbags and observe the moon) and another bedroom (with raised sleeping platforms) and storage space upstairs.
In the winter, early morning sun comes through the conservatory and the house is heated by a wood-burning stove.
An earth floor (sealed with beeswax and raw linseed oil) in the main part of the house holds heat from the winter sun, and in the study/spare bedroom, a sawdust-cement floor (four parts sawdust to one part cement) provides a warmer walking surface than concrete.
In the summer, a single slope on the ceiling allows hot air to rise to a high point on the south wall.
Insulated shutters, and the one, double-glazed, window on the south wall, allow ventilation, and a pool of cool air from a shaded area on the south wall can be pulled into the house by natural convection.
The house is protected from southerlies by a berm built on the southeast and west sides, and the conservatory at the east end of the house (enclosed by transparent materials) is the plant nursery; the shower is in the conservatory too, providing benefits for plants and eliminating the need for extraction.
A wall on the northwest of the house has a facade of mudbricks rescued from a local packhouse.
The feature provides a cultural connection to Central Otago's history, and low-growing herbs will eventually be planted in the courtyard to provide an outdoors "garden room''.
A glass north wall provides maximum heat and light, and has an eave to allow maximum sun on the earth floor in winter and no sun on the floor in summer.
It also provides spectacular views to Haehaeata (Leaning Rock) and Te Wairere (Lake Dunstan).
A special feature is the dining area, based on Japanese kotatsu design.
Kotatsu tables normally have a blanket placed over the table frame, below which a form of heating can be placed to warm one's feet.
Bill and Corinne's table has people's feet sitting below floor level, but also allows people to warm their feet with hot water bottles in the winter, or provides a cool area for feet and legs in the summer.
Another source of pride is the solar-powered fridge, modified from a chest freezer at a cost of $500, compared to the roughly $1600 it costs to buy a solar fridge. The solar fridge has about 10% of the running costs of a normal fridge.
Initially, Bill and Corinne were keen to build more dwellings on the property and turn it into some kind of retreat, offering things such as meditation.
Now, accustomed to their own space and remembering some of the hoops they had to jump through to get permissions for their house (they are especially critical of a Central Otago District Council decision that initially approved a state-of-the-art composting toilet and greywater evaporation field, but later rescinded that approval, with no explanation), they have chosen not to pursue that idea.
They also do not wish to subdivide their land, valuing the peace and surety that being the only people living on their 48ha property provides.
They are trying to re-establish some of the woodland that would have once thrived on the land, planting various native trees and shrubs, assisted by a Department of Conservation grant.
"Once the woodland is established the emphasis will be on building up the missing flora; increasing the native bird, lizard and insect fauna; providing a source of planting material for community groups; and providing learning opportunities.''
They value the integrity of their home, proudly looking at the chalk lines of builders and the nails and framing that many people would cover up.
"We wanted the building to be honest,'' said Bill.
"We can see the way this house is constructed.''
They praised the workmanship of the intelligent, respectful tradesmen who worked on the house: builder Steve Gillaly, plumber Peter Smith and glazier the late Graeme McMurray, who suggested the whole-wall windows and came up with a way to make that work structurally.
Bill and Corinne say their house honours the principle of "enough'', most clearly explained by Australian ecologist Bill Mollison, one of the developers of permaculture (an ecologically sound way of living that produces and uses food, energy and shelter in sustainable ways that do not deplete the earth's natural resources).
"Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple,'' Mollison said, and Bill and Corinne still despair that sustainable lifestyles and innovative design do not feature more often in 21st-century environments.
So many people are still living in and building new houses that are essentially 500-600 years old in design, they say, and most of the so-called "eco-friendly'' or "green'' developments in house building are fossil-fuel intensive and "not at all satisfactory in terms of reducing energy use and waste''.
"Most seem to simply tweak current practices and not offer a design approach to living comfortably with less.''
It's with frustration and bemusement they ponder the giant houses many build that Bill and Corinne see as monuments to a person's ego.
"It seems we are still intent on building structures that are unnecessarily large, expensive and wasteful rather than efficient shelters that are not hurting pockets, use renewable resources rather than extracted ones and reduce damage to the environment.''
They would like to see local and central government show more leadership in encouraging people to take advantage of the advances in design and construction that can be seen in New Zealand and around the world.
Current building codes and legislation around them make it difficult for anyone to do anything that differs from "the same old model'', they say.
"Changes are needed that encourage people to think differently and enable them to construct efficient homes ... The green building movement is starting to think about efficient design and sustainable materials but, here in Central Otago at least, buildings constructed over 100 years ago were probably better. Some so-called sustainable buildings today are just status symbols rather than effective attempts to address environmental sustainability. We would really like to see comparisons of the carbon footprints of the standard modern house, the mudbrick cottage of old and a well-designed and constructed shelter.''
Tips
• Bill Nagle and Corinne Ebisu say their house is as close to perfect as they could imagine but, almost 20 years after they built it, there is one thing they would change.
"The solar angles we used were primarily calculated on the azimuths of summer and winter solstices, but we should have paid more attention to the autumn equinox. The lower sun angle around that time allows more sun into the house and at the end of a long hot summer that can be too much sun. So we should have thought about ways to reduce that. We would not want to change the eave, so shading would be the solution, but that would interrupt the view, so we'll live with a few weeks of heat.''
• They also have this advice for those installing solar heating systems:
"One important point is the angle at which solar electric and solar hot water panels are installed. Many people put them in at the angle of the roof which, in this part of the world, is generally not steep enough and means too much radiation in summer and not enough in winter. We insisted on ours being installed at 60 degrees so that maximum benefit is gained from winter sun as summer has more than enough sun. I think most people are not getting their money's worth from installed systems. Niwa has this tool https://www.niwa.co.nz/our-services/online-services/solarview to help with calculations.''
