If you were kidnapped from a British city, and dropped off on a street corner in Wellington, you would be immediately struck by the fact that the houses look different. Different to UK houses. And different from each other. With very few exceptions the houses in NZ are detached. The majority are single storey. And it is very much the norm for each house in the road to be unique. In hilly Wellington some of the houses would actually be either up, or down, a few dozen steps with mail boxes at street level.
And as you sat in the gutter, removing your blindfold, the building materials and methods of construction would also catch your eye. Many external walls are boarded. And many roofs are of “corrugated iron”. You know you are getting used to the place when you start to see a corrugated roof as an attractive vernacular feature. The folk round the corner re-roofed their house last week. First they nailed wooden battens to the shiny silver corrugated roof. Then they attached tiles - well actually they are plastic imitation tiles. All done in a couple of days. And being single storey, no need to put up scaffolding.
The two houses in the photo illustrate the extremities of the “every house unique” rule. These two are on the coast, near Island Bay. One seems to be a copy of an Irish “tower house” such as you find next to farm houses, in the South East. Next to it is a house which is glued to the cliff face. Access to the house is via a lift. There is no road access and no track. There is not even the trace of a track. Construction as an extreme sport.
And as you sat in the gutter, removing your blindfold, the building materials and methods of construction would also catch your eye. Many external walls are boarded. And many roofs are of “corrugated iron”. You know you are getting used to the place when you start to see a corrugated roof as an attractive vernacular feature. The folk round the corner re-roofed their house last week. First they nailed wooden battens to the shiny silver corrugated roof. Then they attached tiles - well actually they are plastic imitation tiles. All done in a couple of days. And being single storey, no need to put up scaffolding.
The two houses in the photo illustrate the extremities of the “every house unique” rule. These two are on the coast, near Island Bay. One seems to be a copy of an Irish “tower house” such as you find next to farm houses, in the South East. Next to it is a house which is glued to the cliff face. Access to the house is via a lift. There is no road access and no track. There is not even the trace of a track. Construction as an extreme sport.
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