Smith House - Tai Tapu

Featured in Latitude Magazine June/July 2021

and Business South Magazine - Editorial by Kim Newth.

In Tai Tapu, a strikingly contemporary home has been drawing plenty of favourable attention for its bold concrete form and honest good looks.

Yet there are no pre-cast panels in this solid two-storey home. Admire Concrete Homes built this home by pouring the concrete all in place. The result is a very strong, thermally efficient home with a striking raw aesthetic look all of its own, reminiscent of the 1950’s brutalist architecture.

“Concrete provides huge thermal mass within the building insulation envelope,” explains Admire Concrete Homes’ director Stephen Clearwater.“The internal concrete walls are typically between 100-200mm thick, depending on structural requirements. The exterior walls comprise of concrete structural walls, with rigid insulation on the outside of them, and then an outer layer of concrete is poured. “All of this creates a sandwich effect, with the exterior walls typically being 300–400mm thick. Our exciting new building system enables the walls and ceilings to be poured at the same time, resulting in a very strong monolithic building.”

Admire Concrete Homes is the only company in Christchurch offering concrete cast-insitu

homes. Stephen says pouring in place offers many advantages.“As well as being strong, the natural concrete finish is very real. The concrete is a finished product with no need for internal plaster board linings, or exterior cladding systems.”

The delighted owners of the beautiful featured Tai Tapu home love the natural concrete finish that in many ways revives and furthers the modernist aesthetic first explored in Christchurch in the 1950s and ‘60s. The house was designed by husband and wife team Stephen and Juanita Clearwater. It is a modern contemporary design incorporating a master bedroom suite on a mezzanine level, overlooking the six metre high windows off the living room below.

The garage was kept separate to the main building, with canopies connecting with the home, giving an extended size profi le with a stunning entrance breeze-way.“There’s a feeling inside our homes that is unique: they are calm, quiet and comfortable. The thermal mass walls mean the internal

temperature is very stable throughout, therefore very economical to heat.”

The Tai Tapu home is certainly sparking interest in the Christchurch market.“We’re now building more homes for people who have seen what we have built in Tai Tapu and have decided that they just have to have one too!” With Stephen’s engineering background and Juanita’s architectural design experience, they work seamlessly together to build these beautiful homes.

Admire Concrete Homes is designing and building more homes with the same honest beauty of raw concrete in Canterbury.