Winning Superhome makes the most of ‘cheap’ and ‘awful’ site
“If I can’t build a house on this, I should give up my job.” Those were architectural designer Rob d’Auvergne’s words to his wife, showing he was unafraid of a challenge after finding an objectively “awful” site to build their dream home on.
The section, in Cashmere, Christchurch, was reasonably close to the CBD, had good orientation to the sun, shelter from the wind, and was above the city’s inversion layer. However, it was also very steep, overgrown and criss-crossed with stormwater easements.
Price was definitely a factor. “We basically got it cheap because nobody wanted it,” Rob d“Auvergne says. ”It’s an awful site.“
The four-bedroom-plus-office house on Longhurst Terrace took two years to build. It has just won the Superhome of the Year award, acknowledging its superior design, particularly with reference to energy-efficient characteristics.
The key principles for a Superhome are: good design; verified thermal performance; super-insulated floor, walls and roof; high-performance and recessed windows; airtightness, ventilation, efficient energy, and water; low carbon materials and good waste management, according to Superhome movement founder Bob Burnett.
The judges described the d’Auvergne home as “simple, smart, super”.
“This hill-site home effortlessly combines practicality with style, responsible yet interesting with beautifully lit and well proportioned spaces.
“This Superhome is a clear demonstration of holistic design, high performance architecture, capitalising on the site’s stunning views. Rarely are such elegant, well-balanced, high performing, practical designs seen.”
The d’Auvergne family – Rob, Marie, and daughters Zoë, Alexis, and Gabriella – had been living in Rangiora, North Canterbury, but regularly travelling into town for work, school and kids’ sports when they decided to move.
They had built before: Rob says their Rangiora home, completed in 2014, was “relatively energy efficient, but certainly not full noise Superhome”.
“We used thermally broken joinery, slabedge insulation, some of those features, which were not par for the course back then.
“We did [still] get condensation on the windows.”
With one child with asthma and eczema, they wanted to do even better with this new build, which was completed in December 2022.
Rob, who is a Homestar assessor (assessing homes for their environmental credentials), says that as an outdoors-lover, he’s always had a “real affinity for the environment and eco-systems”.
“You become sensitive to issues that affect those spaces.”
As well as building a house that performs well in terms of energy use, they used sustainably sourced materials as much as possible in the Cashmere build.
“We had a steep site, so we had to use a certain amount of concrete,” Rob says. “But we minimised it. It has a timber subfloor and floor – which means less embodied carbon.
“The claddings are lightweight, designed to be low maintenance: natural timber and Weathertex, which can be left to silver off.”
Budget constraints meant some compromises had to be made.
“The front of the house looks pretty wow, the entry and stairwell,” Rob says, “But the back of the house, the bedrooms and back spaces are quite basic spec home-level, to the point where we have wardrobes that are flatpack stuff from Bunnings.”
The house is pre-wired for solar panels, but they are not installed yet.
Rob says they prioritised the elements needed to make the home perform well, such as good insulation, and the ventilation and heating systems.
The house has a very low heating demand, but because it’s in a “big old gully with a lot of existing trees”, they did include a log burner for heating in winter.
As they fell the exotic trees, they are replacing them with natives such as lacebark, five finger and broadleaf.
“We’re looking at what’s locally appropriate,“Rob says. ”Because it’s quite a long skinny site, we’re trying to return it to what would have been there, to create a corridor and bring the birds back.“
Rob says it’s a pleasure to live in such a high spec home. The “long, difficult” build process, meant his children had the typical Kiwi experience of living in a cold, damp home, as they rented a “classic 1970s home in Avonhead” while building.
“It was your typical draughty cold, damp place. It had a couple of heatpumps so we could keep it totally warm.
“They love being in this new place and settling in and making it home.”