Thorndon award-winning home designed by James Mackie. PHOTO/SUPPLIED
KAREN COLTMAN
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Greytown designer James Mackie has taken out the national Resene Architectural Design Award 2020 for the best new home between 150m2 and 300m2.
The new build is on the corner of Tinakori Rd and Hobson St in Wellington on a small piece of previously government-owned land.
The site is exposed to the street on two sides, with a busy motorway behind it and is within proximity of the Wellington fault line.
Mackie designed the two-bedroom townhouse for a couple wanting the design focus to ‘mitigate the environmental factors of the urban site, particularly its lack of privacy and proximity to the Wellington Faultline and motorway’.
To meet this brief, and create a private courtyard garden, it has stepped block walls around the northern perimeter, facing a busy intersection.
The western elevation sits on the footpath’s edge, acting as a boundary wall, with carefully positioned angled windows.
Mackie worked closely with engineer Jared Sullivan to design a bespoke suspended foundation system.
The foundations consist of Prolam timber piles [glue laminated structural posts] concreted into deep augured footings, with bolted connections to Prolam bearers.
The Architectural Designers New Zealand judges said they were impressed by the designer’s ability to create an “inviting property on an uninviting site”.
Mackie said he only submits projects to the competition that he is very pleased with.
“We need to feel our soul is still in the design once the whole project is complete. This one felt that what we intended to do was done well,” he said.
Matthew Palmer Construction was involved, and Sullivan consultants were the structural engineers.
Most of Mackie’s projects are Wairarapa based now.
His company, Mackit Architecture, won the 2019 ADNZ national commercial interior architecture design award for their design work on the Greytown ‘Blackwell and Sons’ building.
