“As my client spent more time in the house, more rooms were lived in, and the need for a renovation soon became evident,” says Negri, “especially given the mix of art deco-meets-English cottage-style ‘gimmicks’ became more of a problem than a feature.”

An initial renovation brief extended to cover the full 260m² of the main house, maintaining the existing envelope while creating a new interior with infrastructure suited to the cold local conditions.

“Our response was made up of three layers,” explains Negri. “Firstly, resolving the mechanics of the interior, easing the stylistic clashes and addressing material tension. We approached it as a regeneration, not just a renovation – healing the home to help the body heal. We spent days absorbing the house’s sensory language: the acoustics, scents, natural light, heat patterns and textures. This formed the base of our architectural response, making the home feel intentional, calm and newly whole.” 

Under the premise that good, honest and local materials would stay – accepting and understanding their imperfections and the limitations imposed by them – saw the existing rimu ceilings, rendered walls, schist walls and fireplace surrounds remain in place.

The main exercise was around harmonising the three volumes with materials such as smoked-oak timber floors and restoring and adding plaster to the larger spaces. Bathrooms and kitchen saw the introduction of new materials, such as natural stone (limestone and marble) and crafted Japanese tiles. “There was a focus on removing architectural features that had previously been used to disguise errors and imperfections,” says Negri. “All skirtings, mouldings and architraves were taken out, to celebrate the craft and nature of the materials intersecting.”

What Negri and fellow creative director Maria Diaz Valentin have done here started with imagining the home’s future personality, then reorienting the interior architecture toward views and introducing invisible layers of infrastructure that futureproof the house. Then they added a unified palette of natural materials, which embodies the idea of regeneration and brings a gentle, soothing cohesion to the project.

“Each space was designed as a progressive exercise,” says Diaz Valentin, “to be calming, sensory, and rooted in place. The layered strategy resulted in blurred boundaries between old and new, function and feeling, function and intuition.”