Houzz Tour: Eastern Philosophy Meets Sustainability
A contemporary home in Auckland, New Zealand, immerses itself in nature and the Sthapatya Veda architectural discipline
Homeowners Peta and Joe Davy believe in Sthapatya Veda, an architectural discipline that is mentioned in 5,000-year-old Sanskrit scripts. It is described as the science and art of creating structures where every part is in accord with the whole. As such, it incorporates essential elements of sustainable design. With the help of a talented architect and a Vedic consultant, the couple constructed their home in Auckland, New Zealand, following this discipline that fits with their modern lifestyles.
The parameters of Sthapatya Veda include the correct orientation of the dwelling, the right placement of rooms within it and a design that follows precise proportions. This home is north-facing, and the kitchen, seen here through a ribbon window that follows the horizontal line of the recycled siding, is to the east. “Cooking should be done facing east, since when the sun rises, its energy is most nourishing,” Peta says. A low wood wall surrounds and protects the property. Although the home is only 20 minutes from the city, it feels like rural living.
Inside, concrete floors combined with a roof pitch that captures every last drop of winter sun means the wetback fireplace is seldom used. Behind it, the bricks absorb heat and release it slowly into the room. An industrial feel created by the concrete and brick is softened by kitchen cabinetry in a yellow-toned koto wood veneer, which lay unwanted in a supply yard for 12 years. It’s set against a black backdrop to emphasize its lightness and striated grain.
The bar stools at the kitchen counter are a favorite buy from Cintesi, while the pendant lights are from BoConcept. The dining tabletop was made by Kauri Warehouse from the same recycled power poles used on the home’s exterior siding.
The bar stools at the kitchen counter are a favorite buy from Cintesi, while the pendant lights are from BoConcept. The dining tabletop was made by Kauri Warehouse from the same recycled power poles used on the home’s exterior siding.
A study nook-office occupies an alcove behind the fireplace. The swivel chair was a vintage find on the website Trade Me; Peta replaced the wheels. “I picked up the principles of living in a sustainable way from my father, who is a real ‘greenie,’” she says.
Honey-toned tawa wood flooring has been repurposed from a 1950s bungalow. The slim-line planks lend a fine elegance to the narrow footprint. The tawa also features on the walls and sliding internal doors. “To save space, we specified no hinged doors,” Peta says. This door leads to the bathroom, where a sunny yellow palette (Resene’s Wazzup) brings a sense of fun to family living. The brahmasthan, a square of flooring that marks the central axis of the house, lies just outside this sliding door. “In Vedic tradition, it is seen as a silent core that should never be walked on,” she says.
The color scheme throughout the home is a consistent white and gray, with accents of yellow. Recycled tawa wood was used to create a headboard in the master bedroom, and the lighting has been cleverly built in. “I think that the imperfections in recycled [woods] give the home an instant familiarity that some modern houses lack,” Peta says. Felted wool carpets lend a wonderful textural feel underfoot, and the room has an en suite and walk-in wardrobe.
The Vedic dictum is that the toilets and sinks should face north. Rainwater collected from a tank on the property feeds the toilets. “I wanted the en suite to feel like a cave, so I found tiles that looked like stone,” Peta says.
Brick walls anchor the house and form a strong part of the aesthetics in the bedrooms. The couple believe in reusing materials, and the Monier bricks were seconds that once had a yellow tumbled surface. Peta knew she was going to paint them white, and she asked her bricklayer to lay them with the front surface facing inward.
Built-in bunks give the boys more room to play when friends come over. Many of the furnishings in the home are secondhand or inherited. The couple are keen to teach their boys the green values of reusing and recycling. “I always look on sites such as Trade Me first to see if someone has something they aren’t using. You can sell a new product on its green qualities, but nothing is more green than secondhand,” Peta says.
Resene’s Half Gravel is on the walls in the family bathroom. The bath was an end-of-line Victoria & Albert model from Robertson. “It is made to be set on a cradle, but I like the exposed base,” Peta says. Solar panels installed on the north-facing roof above the rear bedroom wing power a hot water system that works efficiently. “All four of us can have a shower in the morning, and there’s more than enough warmth to last.”
The east-west axis of the home has an uninterrupted flow (with no doors blocking the energy), which is consistent with Vedic philosophy. The couple and McLeay chose not to use flush-mounted ceiling lights since this compromises the insulation. Instead they used either fluorescent tubing or low-energy LED spots.
Deep soffits of yellow cedar provide much-needed shade in summer, while the high louvered windows allow natural ventilation. Sitting on the deck is a magical and ever-changing experience. In the birds’ breeding season, some 2,000 oystercatchers flock to the paddock in front of the Davys’ outdoor living room. In the mornings, the boys saunter across the paddocks of adjacent Ambury Regional Park’s Lost Garden and farm to the local school, passing sheep and cows as they go.
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Who lives here: Peta and Joe Davy, a professional couple, and their two young boys
Location: Mangere Bridge, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand
Size: 1,744 square feet (162 square meters); three bedrooms, two bathrooms
Designers: Peta, an interior designer, in collaboration with Neil Hamill, a Vedic consultant, and Mark McLeay of Creative Arch
The couple initially bought the property, and the standard ’70s house that was on it, as an investment. The property overlooks the pastures and stony outcrops of a protected area where Maori once gardened on the shores of Manukau Harbour. It didn’t take long for the Davys to realize that the location deserved a more fitting dwelling. So they sold the original wood clapboard house and were happy to see it taken off on its journey north to be relocated and given a new life as a vacation home.
Peta, an interior designer for Ursula Vlasic, then collaborated with Neil Hamill and architectural designer Mark McLeay to create a home that melds green thinking with ancient Eastern design knowledge in a completely contemporary way. “This house feels very grounded and linked to the environment,” Peta says. “It is exactly how it looked in my mind; I walked through it so many times in my head, lying awake in bed before we built it.”
The structure of the home is essentially a brick box, shielded on its east and west faces by striking wooden siding made from recycled power poles. “There aren’t many people who could live with the imperfections in this timber,” Peta says. Luckily she’s not afraid of the spiders that colonize the holes pockmarking the surface. Peta loves the rich tones of this siding, which she has been oiling regularly so that it doesn’t fade to gray. The butterfly roof that lifts up over the living zone references the shape of nearby Mangere Mountain.