Many New Zealanders have spent at least one summer holiday staying in a bach. If you’re lucky, your family may have a bach or holiday house that’s been passed down through generations, with long and lazy summers to look forward to by a beach, river or lake. This book features a dozen holiday houses designed by life- and business-partners Nicola and Lance Herbst, including their own bach on Aotea (Great Barrier Island). The Aotea bach was their first permanent home in New Zealand and has become their long-term retreat. They have since designed more than a dozen other holiday houses on the same island.
Author John Walsh specialises in writing about architecture. He first came across the Herbst’s work around two decades ago. He says that the Herbsts “design very attractive houses that rise to the occasion of very desirable sites … [and] exquisitely balance connection with nature and shelter from the elements.”
Walsh’s introduction challenges readers to expand their vocabulary, with terms such as countervailing, sumptuary, and prelapsarian. He provides an overview of Nicola and Lance Herbst’s careers, including their early work as graduate architects in South Africa. The introduction also outlines the significant influences on their approach and practice and explains why the Herbsts chose to settle permanently in New Zealand.
Nicola describes their need to “put some roots down” after several years of bouncing between South Africa and New Zealand.
We needed a place that would give us an emotional connection to this country, and that would be a source of happiness.
Walsh discusses the evolution of the New Zealand bach. Early baches were typically basic structures in a “little patch of paradise” and many were owner-built with leftover materials and cobbled together over time. Now, baches are often much grander in scale and composition – and require much bigger budgets. Walsh refers to the eventual ‘suburbanisation’ of many beach settlements, resulting in new builds often looking like their counterparts in the city.
Perhaps whether a house is called a bach or not is up to the owner. Walsh acknowledges that although the concept of a bach (as refuge or retreat) may be central to a particular home’s design and purpose, the term ‘bach’ may no longer be the best way to describe it.
…as the Herbsts’ projects increased in scale and functional scope, too much was being asked of the ‘bach’ as descriptor or definer.
The Herbsts faced a few stumbling blocks when first drawing plans for New Zealand conditions. They had to take “frequent rain and constant wind” into account and learn how to work with the materials favoured in this country, such as timber walls and cladding. In South Africa most of their work had been with brick and concrete. Yet there was a certain freedom in knowing that they need not follow the existing approaches used by many New Zealand architects. Nicola explains that they were not “constrained by preconceptions of how things should and shouldn’t be done”.
Central to the Herbsts’ design ethos is a belief that “the ‘porous connection to nature’ … is fundamental to the bach experience”. This is evident in the homes featured in the book, which are firmly and thoughtfully embedded into surrounding landscapes. Many have superb views of local bush and trees, some have water views as well.
A house in a beautiful place should properly acknowledge its site; refuge should involve some renunciation of the regimes of normal life; habitation should bring joy.
Walsh presents a brief history of each house, outlining the principles underpinning the Herbsts’ design. The Herbsts describe challenges faced on each site, such as weather-related limitations, seismic code requirements, or the need to obtain consent for a house that was to be built next to mature pōhutukawa. There are around 10 or so photos of the interior and exterior of each house, although no captions for the photos. The photos capture the precision, textures and other details that Herbst baches are known for. These include rain screens and massive shutters that provide a barrier against the elements, cedar battens, and gabion walls.
Each section concludes with a floor plan, also without labels. It’s up to readers to ponder the purpose of each room – perhaps reflecting the owners’ ability to determine how they will live in each space. Walsh includes rough sketches of some of the homes, and there’s at least one aerial shot. The names given to some of the homes allude to their form, function or setting: the ‘Lantern House’, the Ōruawharo Bay Bach’ and the ‘Dune House’, for example.
The Herbsts stress the importance of establishing a strong relationship between houses and trees. The ‘Under Pōhutukawa’ house in Piha was designed so that the house and the nearby trees complement each other. There is a near-seamless connection between inside and outside:
You’re not quite sure whether you’re sitting under the trees or sitting in the building.
In the case studies provided for each house it’s evident that the owners trusted the Herbsts, and vice versa. The book depicts the dramatic results achieved on the basis of this mutual trust. The Herbsts tell of stopping to take a photo of a house they had designed in Kauaeranga Valley, Coromandel:
A ute pulled up, and the driver leaned out to say, ‘Have you ever seen anything bloody worse than that in your whole life?’ The young woman with him didn’t agree. ‘Nah,’ she said, ‘I love it.”
The Herbsts’ willingness to share this anecdote says a great deal about their confidence in their designs – their willingness to take chances and to build structures that may polarise opinions, and their desire to meet their clients’ demands. In this case for a brand-new build to conversely have an aged, weathered and slightly beaten-up appearance. This was accomplished by repurposing ‘perfectly rusted’ corrugated iron for the home’s exterior.
There are clever parallels between the book’s spine and cover, and its contents. The exposed spine – with red saddle stitching – is bold and eye-catching. The red stitching is visible on some of the interior pages too, although it is not a distraction. The advantage of this bookbinding method is that most pages sit open flat and the book handles beautifully. As there is no cover for the spine, there is no way to identify the book’s author, topic, or publisher when the book is on a shelf. On the other hand, people may be drawn to the spine out of curiosity, as it is both striking and unusual – as are the houses featured in Walsh’s book. The cover too, is subtly arresting. It’s made of corrugated brown cloth with a single word embossed: herbst.
As well as holiday houses, the Herbsts have designed other types of houses, offices, warehouses, apartments and a school library. They have won many awards for their work from Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA). Many of the photos in this book are double-page spreads, allowing readers to pause and ‘visit’ the indoor and outdoor spaces that the Herbsts have created. How fortunate are the owners, their families and their friends who get to relax in these settings.
Reviewer: Anne Kerslake Hendricks
Massey University Press