THE ARCHITECT
Meet our good friend Fraser Horton from Fraser Horton Design. It’s safe to say that he is basically a genius in architecture and design. Here’s a bit about who he is, why we like working with him and some key things to know about finding the right architect for you.
ABOUT FRASER
Fraser and Corban actually go waaaaay back!
In 2007, these two friends came up with a crazy idea while surfing one weekend to join forces and skill sets to build an epic shipping container house on a hill top in Muriwai.
At the time Fraser was completing his Masters in Architecture, and Corban was looking for his next opportunity to exercise his engineering and project management skills to build his first home. Fraser designed and Corban built this magnificently unique Muriwai Container House.
This was one of Fraser’s first design projects that became a physical home.
Since then, Fraser has completed his Masters in Architecture and worked for the likes of Cheshire Architects and moved on to develop his own business helping people design high end homes and bespoke builds around the country.
Corban and Fraser have since worked on award winning projects together through their combined business Special Projects since then, so naturally we 100% trust Fraser with our own house design.
DESIGN APPROACH
Getting to the final design comes down to the approach of the Architect. So here’s Fraser explaining his approach and the stages he went through to get the final design.
This design, as with any, went through an evolution process. Working with the client, the site, the brief and the budget, you test and refine and test and refine. In some ways having a site like this makes decisions somewhat easier, as you are so restricted with what you can do. The key thing with this site was knowing exactly what those restrictions were so we could maximise the outcome.
The initial concepts were an exploration into the possibilties of the site. I tested out ideas of form and layout. Together we reviewed what was good and not so good. Eventually we arrived at a concept that we felt had a lot of important elements sorted. This had an additional wing for a separate master bedroom, and slightly-too-complicated geometry. We decided to try and pair this back to save money, but also, an important consideration was having a decent amount of usable outdoor space. So we decided to lose the additional master wing and make the main space more efficient in its planning.
I then developed this concept to test material options and refine the planning layout. During this stage we moved the kitchen and living spaces around, tried different stair arrangements, and started to refine exterior details. We also engaged an engineer at this point to start to develop the structural design of the house.
At the end of this, all of the key parts of the design are decided and drawn, and we could then apply for a resource consent.
Once the resource consent was granted, we could then move to the detailed design stage where the construction drawings are documented.
CONTACT FRASER
E: info@fraserhortondesign.com
P: +64 21 031 9050