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Couple’s shed gives new meaning to going bush

Akaroa’s raw, natural beauty was the drawcard for this award-winning ‘‘shed’’, a precursor for what will eventually be a forever home, finds Sharon Stephenson.

Many people dream about fleeing the city’s urban grit for a cleaner, more serene life in the country. Amy Douglas and Mitchell Coll aren’t among them. The husband-and-wife team, who started their architecture firm Coll Architecture in 2009 (now re-branded to Fabric), say they love living in inner-city Christchurch.

‘‘We love the hustle and bustle of city life and being close to everything,’’ says Coll, an architect and director of Fabric.

But it seems even the most committed urbanites can be swayed by Akaroa’s raw, natural beauty. In 2019, the couple bought a 4600m2 section above Akaroa with the aim of building their ‘‘forever home’’.

‘‘We first spotted the section in 2016,’’ says Douglas, a designer. The couple had spent a number of summers mooring their boat in Akaroa and grew to love the area.

‘‘My grandparents had a bach in Akaroa, so I grew up visiting them,’’ says Douglas. ‘‘Mitch didn’t have the same connection to the area, but over five or six summers, he fell in with it as much as me. We knew we wanted to have a place there.’’

But the couple’s first attempt at buying the section wasn’t a success. ‘‘We missed out to someone else who had dreams of building a Grand Designs-style house,’’ says Douglas.

‘‘They subsequently found a cottage in town and decided they liked the older style of house more.’’

Douglas and Coll were determined to get their hands on the section, which overlooks Settler’s Hill and up to Purple Peak and provides glimpses of the harbour.

‘‘It isn’t the usual Akaroa, fullharbour vista, but we can see the sea through the trees and we actually like it more like that, because it feels a bit more secluded,’’ she adds.

It took a year for the sale to go through, after which the couple spent every weekend for the next six months clearing the site of gorse and whiteywood, as well as adding services such as power and water.

But then 2020’s lockdown hit. ‘‘Like all small business owners, we wanted to keep our three architectural designers, so the plan was for them to help with the initial building, a services shed, after restrictions were lifted,’’ says Coll.

‘‘Our team are hands-on and enjoy building so they started doing that, but then we got really busy, so in the end, Amy and I finished it.’’

The couple also designed and built a hot tub. ‘‘We didn’t want to buy a hot tub off the shelf but also knew it was a priority after a hard days’ work on site,’’ says Douglas.

Coll designed the 10m2 services shed, which they call Nightlight for its clever use of materials that reflect light.

It is constructed from polycarbonate, is enveloped in a lattice of timber slats and has enough spacing to allow light through.

The shed is currently used to store their tools but also features an indoor toilet and kitchen bench with hot water, a feature appreciated by their friends who camp on the site and the couple, who have graduated from a tent to a caravan.

‘‘It’s such a luxury to have a hot shower and hot water to do the dishes,’’ says Douglas.

As befits its setting among mature kā nuka trees, the couple opted for colours that help the building slot into, and enhance, its surroundings, rather than detract from them.

‘‘With colour, you can either stand out or blend in,’’ says Coll. ‘The latter was our aim, to nestle the building into the site.’’

The duo’s choice of Mist Green, from the Dulux Powder Coating’s range, netted the Single Residential Exterior Winner gong in this year’s Dulux Colour Awards. The judges said their use of colour enabled the structure to ‘‘sit comfortably with the structural timbers and myriad greens of the surrounding bush.

‘‘The result is calm and sincere, striking an organic balance between form and function.’’

They also opted for powder-coated aluminium enabled flashings and custom-crafted screens, windows and a surface slider. ‘‘Powder-coating is such an underutilised design tool because it is also a way to customise off-the-shelf items such as the storage trays we bought from a hardware store, took apart and then had powder-coated,’’ says Douglas.

A second shed is now being built, for wood storage, but this one is hidden in the bush. After that will come an 18m2 guest house, which the couple hope to crack on with this summer.

‘‘We’ll do a lot of it ourselves,’’ admits Douglas. ‘‘A good friend of ours is a builder and while Mitch knows what he’s doing, I’ve never built anything, before so our builder friend has been patiently teaching me.’’

Eventually, the couple hope to build their 100m2 forever home.

‘‘Our business and our house are in the city,’’ says Coll. ‘‘But I’d say the next five to 10 years is when we’ll build the house. The dream is also to keep a base in the city because that will give us the best of both worlds.’’

In the meantime, they aren’t idle, spending every spare weekend regenerating the bush and restoring plantings around the existing buildings.

Homed

en-nz

2023-06-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/282110640989673

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