Parbhu Barn House

Elegant Design Pays Homage to the Rural Waikato Vernacular

Parbhu Barn House
Parbhu Barn House
Parbhu Barn House
Parbhu Barn House

Project Credits

Client

Parbhu Family

Date Completed

2013

Sector

Residential & Community

Awards

2014 NZIA Awards
// Waikato, Bay of Plenty
// Small Project Architecture Award

Project Governance
No items found.
Project Lead

Brian Squair

A contemporary take on a traditional Waikato barn turned into an award-winning project for Chow:Hill’s Hamilton/Kirikiriroa studio.

The Waikato rolling countryside is replete with barns and implement sheds with a mix of board and batten cladding and corrugated steel. On summer evenings, headlights and floodlights can often be seen, piercing through from the inside of barns as farmers and contractors work late to bring in hay before the dew (or rain) of the morning. So when Chow:Hill was asked to develop a project brief for a distinctive but small and functional premises that included accommodation and implement shed, this harvesting image caught our imagination.

House or barn? It’s a barn house! Serving as a temporary home for the smallholding owners until their ‘feature home’ is built, the workshop with simple living quarters on the upper level and an implements shed on the ground floor, received national recognition for its well-proportioned and modern agrarian design.

LVL portal frames form the primary structure and corrugated coil-coated steel cladding provides solidity of form. The horizontal timber battens combined with hit and miss cedar sliding screens over the main windows allow for the provision of filtered light to the interior spaces. The concealed gutters provide a clean edge to the building, whilst the recessed glazed gable ends bring a contemporary response in addressing the foreground ponds and pasture, and background vista of the Hakarimata ranges. The interior linings consist of blonded plywood ceiling and walls, and the LVL portals are exposed and similarly finished.

At night the barn glows, dramatically revealing the large glazed openings behind the battens and screens within the traditional barn form.

Read More
Designed within the environment

Like a typical farm shed, the barn house is self-sufficient and constructed with honest materials consistent with its context. Though there is power supply for back-up, in the main, the barn is detached from services, and its design is robust and innovative.

Environmentally-friendly rainwater collection, grey water reuse options, onsite sewage treatment, passive ventilation, low-emission log burner, solar hot water panels and photovoltaic cells for power generation all combine to create a design that has virtually zero running costs. 

All in all, the Parbhu Barn House sympathetically combines the best in practical rural living with an integrated farm amenity.

Parbhu Barn House

Project Overview

Client

Parbhu Family

Status

2013

A contemporary take on a traditional Waikato barn turned into an award-winning project for Chow:Hill’s Hamilton/Kirikiriroa studio.

The Waikato rolling countryside is replete with barns and implement sheds with a mix of board and batten cladding and corrugated steel. On summer evenings, headlights and floodlights can often be seen, piercing through from the inside of barns as farmers and contractors work late to bring in hay before the dew (or rain) of the morning. So when Chow:Hill was asked to develop a project brief for a distinctive but small and functional premises that included accommodation and implement shed, this harvesting image caught our imagination.

House or barn? It’s a barn house! Serving as a temporary home for the smallholding owners until their ‘feature home’ is built, the workshop with simple living quarters on the upper level and an implements shed on the ground floor, received national recognition for its well-proportioned and modern agrarian design.

LVL portal frames form the primary structure and corrugated coil-coated steel cladding provides solidity of form. The horizontal timber battens combined with hit and miss cedar sliding screens over the main windows allow for the provision of filtered light to the interior spaces. The concealed gutters provide a clean edge to the building, whilst the recessed glazed gable ends bring a contemporary response in addressing the foreground ponds and pasture, and background vista of the Hakarimata ranges. The interior linings consist of blonded plywood ceiling and walls, and the LVL portals are exposed and similarly finished.

At night the barn glows, dramatically revealing the large glazed openings behind the battens and screens within the traditional barn form.

Read More
Designed within the environment

Like a typical farm shed, the barn house is self-sufficient and constructed with honest materials consistent with its context. Though there is power supply for back-up, in the main, the barn is detached from services, and its design is robust and innovative.

Environmentally-friendly rainwater collection, grey water reuse options, onsite sewage treatment, passive ventilation, low-emission log burner, solar hot water panels and photovoltaic cells for power generation all combine to create a design that has virtually zero running costs. 

All in all, the Parbhu Barn House sympathetically combines the best in practical rural living with an integrated farm amenity.

Parbhu Barn HouseParbhu Barn House
Parbhu Barn HouseParbhu Barn HouseParbhu Barn House
Parbhu Barn House

Project Credits

Client

Parbhu Barn House

Status

2013

Project Type

Residential & Community

Awards

2014 NZIA Awards
// Waikato, Bay of Plenty
// Small Project Architecture Award

 

Project Lead

Brian Squair

Design Team
Parbhu Barn House

Project Overview

Client

Parbhu Family

Status

2013

A contemporary take on a traditional Waikato barn turned into an award-winning project for Chow:Hill’s Hamilton/Kirikiriroa studio.

The Waikato rolling countryside is replete with barns and implement sheds with a mix of board and batten cladding and corrugated steel. On summer evenings, headlights and floodlights can often be seen, piercing through from the inside of barns as farmers and contractors work late to bring in hay before the dew (or rain) of the morning. So when Chow:Hill was asked to develop a project brief for a distinctive but small and functional premises that included accommodation and implement shed, this harvesting image caught our imagination.

House or barn? It’s a barn house! Serving as a temporary home for the smallholding owners until their ‘feature home’ is built, the workshop with simple living quarters on the upper level and an implements shed on the ground floor, received national recognition for its well-proportioned and modern agrarian design.

LVL portal frames form the primary structure and corrugated coil-coated steel cladding provides solidity of form. The horizontal timber battens combined with hit and miss cedar sliding screens over the main windows allow for the provision of filtered light to the interior spaces. The concealed gutters provide a clean edge to the building, whilst the recessed glazed gable ends bring a contemporary response in addressing the foreground ponds and pasture, and background vista of the Hakarimata ranges. The interior linings consist of blonded plywood ceiling and walls, and the LVL portals are exposed and similarly finished.

At night the barn glows, dramatically revealing the large glazed openings behind the battens and screens within the traditional barn form.

Read More
Designed within the environment

Like a typical farm shed, the barn house is self-sufficient and constructed with honest materials consistent with its context. Though there is power supply for back-up, in the main, the barn is detached from services, and its design is robust and innovative.

Environmentally-friendly rainwater collection, grey water reuse options, onsite sewage treatment, passive ventilation, low-emission log burner, solar hot water panels and photovoltaic cells for power generation all combine to create a design that has virtually zero running costs. 

All in all, the Parbhu Barn House sympathetically combines the best in practical rural living with an integrated farm amenity.

Parbhu Barn HouseParbhu Barn House
Parbhu Barn HouseParbhu Barn House
Parbhu Barn HouseParbhu Barn House

Project Credits

Client

Parbhu Barn House

Status

2013

Project Type

Residential & Community

Awards

2014 NZIA Awards
// Waikato, Bay of Plenty
// Small Project Architecture Award

 

Project Lead

Brian Squair

Design Team

Explore related projects