A House Designed as an Architectural Response to the Landscape (House Tour)

A house designed as an architectural response to the landscape, Bendemeer House by Ponting Fitzgerald, with interior design by Seagar Design, is a place from which to take in the spectacular views of the natural environment just outside of Queenstown on New Zealand’s South Island. The house provides protection from the harsh elements that the site is subject to, acting as an architectural windbreak in its arrangement as a U-shaped structure with a sheltered courtyard at its centre. This courtyard-house design is fundamental to the way the architecture engages with the landscape, enabling the architectural home to sit as a discrete pair of concrete, timber and glass pavilions that provide luxury within and a sensitive, recessive form in the environment. The detail belies the simplicity of these forms, with the architecture balancing a sense of comfort and luxury that is provided by the detailed design with the robust, deliberately simple qualities that respond to the jagged landscape that surro