74 | Esque House Design ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN esquehousedesign.nz alisa@esquehousedesign.nz 022 687 9419 NELSON | BLENHEIM | CHRISTCHURCH | CROMWELL | AUCKLAND TM Leading the way in custom joinery for over 30 years. Committed to delivering high quality products & outstanding service. TRENDSKITCHENS.CO.NZ Bringing client needs to life The 185sqm two-storey house includes a flexible layout that can be enjoyed by the extended family. T T Rosa Watson Creating a flexible-living holiday home in Tekapo for her family was the launching pad for Christchurch-based Alisa Huang starting her own business. She started Esque House Design in 2018, following four years with a housing company as an in-house designer. Today, the practice specialises in residential design and takes projects from concept designs all the way through to obtaining building consents. The name, Esque — which in English means “in the style of” — was fitting for what she was setting out to achieve for clients. “I do my best to bring the client’s idea to life,” she says. “I always ask them to give me their brief ... kind of like a wish list. We go from there and discuss what can be done.” She believes the most important aspect of the design process lies in listening to the clients. Understanding the clients’ needs and goals is key to creating designs that are unique and personal to them. She also enjoys taking on the challenge of coming up with practical solutions to achieve certain special design features requested by the clients. “I do respect what they want.” Her work is mostly in the Canterbury area stretching to the Selwyn and Waimakariri districts. She has also done four projects in Mackenzie District — one of these being her first project designing a holiday home for her family that was built in 2018. The 185sqm two-storey house includes a flexible layout that can be enjoyed by the extended family while also being hired out as an Airbnb. The upper floor area is a multipurpose space that can be used as a bedroom/office, with its own bathroom downstairs as well as a separate entry. It is mainly occupied by her mother, who used to manage the Airbnb on site. “She’s the one who’s actually living on site, so she needed her space.” Downstairs comprises a master bedroom with an ensuite bathroom which has mainly been used as an Airbnb suite, and a further two bedrooms on the opposite side of the main living, dining and kitchen area that can be locked and separated from the upstairs space and the Airbnb suite, depending on how the family wants to utilise the space at different stages of life. “So basically, all the areas have a separate entry to them to ensure that the guests and ourselves have privacy,” she says. Alisa says the appearance of the house was also quite important. “It needs to be stunning in that location. I always wanted the house to look beautiful when you walk by on the pathway.” She says because timber cladding is not durable in Tekapo due to the intense sun, timber-look steel cladding with interlocking panels was used. “So basically, we’ve got that look, but not the maintenance side of things, which is great.” They opted for two different colours — one with the timber look, and the other one a grey/blue colour. “We want some connotation to the setting, with the lake, so that’s why we decided to go for a bluish palette.” Designa Schist was also used in keeping with many of the houses in Tekapo. “Schist/stone is one of the favourite claddings there, so we decided to use Designa Schist. It worked quite well with the steel claddings,” she says. In her main line of work designing residential houses in Canterbury, she finds a current trend being the “long-rectangular” layout with the living, dining and kitchen in one line. It is crucial to consider the “flow” of the layout as this shapes how people are going to utilise the space once they live in it, she says. “I think about how the entrance connects to both the main living area and also with the bedroom/bathroom area,” she says, as in some cases a defined entrance can act as the transition point between public and private wings within a house.
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