July 2017
Its not every day somebody comes along, sees our home, and sculpture... and then commissions the design and direction of a building for them. And so this is what happened with the Glenorchy Campground re development project. Not your average construction job going on here, but a " green build ", off the grid, " Living Building Challenge, " Net Zero Energy "... presenting for the world to admire and learn from… a project from the future, about the future, as an example of what can be possible for everyone. Right now. Composting toilets, solar garden power generation, ultra insulation, bedrock heat utilization... the list goes on. You get the picture. An accommodation centre and campground so bold, set in, the beautiful location of Glenorchy - the brainchild with passion fr
m philanthropists Paul & Debbi Brainerd, who have a southern hemisphere home here at the Head of Lake Wakatipu. Was the project in danger of being too alien? Of having such high tech formidable new things that possibly it might lack local soul? Maybe but what could help it along - would be to let a local sculptor loose to design and direct one community shelter building, where the guests might coagulate around an old world open fire place, under the twisted and sunbleached beams of a big shed with aged old stonework, that could have been hand stacked by the pioneering shepherds who tended sheep flocks at the head of the lake in the 19th century. Job done. Thanks Paul & Debbi. Enjoy. I have done so, working with you. Doing this thing. You made it easy.