High on a ridge flanking the Pukenui Forest, Black Ridge House — the 2022 Rural Home of the Year — was designed for a growing family as a retreat that taps into the character of Northland’s wilderness, just beyond the edge of Whangārei’s suburban development.
“With the design, we wanted to anchor the house within the wilderness aspect of the site, creating a strong connection to the surrounding forest,” says co-designer Toby Chapman-Smith.
The home expresses a grounded sense of purpose and simplicity, with a raw, almost industrial material palette that harmonises with the untouched landscape to the north. It offers a quiet sense of refuge, immersed in nature and thoughtfully distanced from the rhythm of suburban life beyond.
The design was inspired by the 2016 Home of the Year winner, K Valley House by Herbst Architects, with its hardy corrugated iron exterior and an interior defined by its natural materiality and earthy simplicity.
Here, that simplicity unfolds with a restrained palette of materials. To the exterior, concrete and steel; inside, the structure is exposed — timber set against warm white walls that, as Toby explains it, “seem to disappear on a foggy morning, as if you’re sitting in the forest with a cup of coffee. There’s a sense of being within nature, rather than apart from it.” A polished concrete floor on the lower level accentuates the raw simplicity and adds another dimension to the textural in situ concrete wall. To the west, tucked behind the kitchen, are two bedrooms; upstairs, a further two — with skylights drawing light in from above.
Black Ridge is for sale through Harcourts. View the listing.
