A Rural Holiday Housing in New Zealand: The Chodge

The Chodge is a rural holiday home designed by DCA Architects of Transformation located in the North Island of New Zealand.

Photo: Simon Devitt

The Chodge is a rural holiday home located in New Zealand surrounded by natural landscape beauty. The dwelling is an exploration of the interstitial space between inside and outside.

It’s a “kiwi” holidaying obsession of living across the threshold of indoors and outdoors. The key moves are a exaggerated separation of an inner contained space, highly insulated, cave like, and sheltered by a larger outer structure, light emitting with large operable openings.

Photo: Simon Devitt

The clients had camped on the bare land for 14 years prior and loved the connectedness with daylight hours and landscape.

They requested a house that could be used across all the seasons, while connected to landscape, feel intimate for two, or spacious to cater for ten.

Photo: Simon Devitt

The design is an exploration of the interstitial space between inside and outside, how you live when on holiday, the relationship with landscape and connection to a rural vernacular.

We set out to explore the potential liveability of this interstitial space.

Photo: Simon Devitt

Living in the threshold drove the idea of creating a space outside the inside, but still inside the outside.

The Woolshed vernacular drove the exterior form. A simple functional roof pitch, unadorned, undecorated, and true to the existing woolshed standing on the property.

Photo: Simon Devitt

The outer cladding is weathertight and light emitting. A translucent skin on the interior contributes to the control of heat gain and heat loss.

Large operable openings, fire station doors, aircraft hangar doors when open render the outside structure a large-scale veranda.

Photo: Simon Devitt

Inside this outer shell is an extruded wooden container for living functions, designed to Passive Haus principles, cave like in stark contrast to the outside structure.

This inner structure is wood clad, warm, recessive and contemplative. Essentially a house within a house.

Photo: Simon Devitt

By creating this interstitial space, the occupants could live across all the seasons and weather patterns.

Additional sleeping spaces on the mezzanine resonate with past camping on the site, in tune with the circadian rhythm of natural daylight hours. A simple frame with curtain pulls around the beds to create a space with a degree of privacy.

Photo: Simon Devitt