The Michael Hill Clubhouse, Queenstown, New Zealand
2007
Patterson Associates Limited
World Architecture Festival Awards 2008 - Sport Category

Photographer: Simon Devitt



Hunkered into the earth, The Michael Hill Clubhouse seeks to integrate and intensify the experience of golf with the landscape. The design seeks an impression of form having evolved from the same forces that shape the land.



The clubhouse is designed around the people that occupy it. It responds to the client's desire for a place that could function as a "private box", then, be converted to a gateway for corporate events. All rooms are set around a fireside courtyard, and the external staircase emerges through the ground plane, celebrating the transcendence to the temporary tent village erected during tournaments.



Geometrically, the plan, section and elevations adhere to a language of inter-related skewed quadrilaterals. Overlaid with this, a coherence of detail is achieved through the repetition of a dimple motif:
Perforations for acoustic and thermal design in the glass-reinforced concrete ceiling; 'cubic golf ball' doors and enclosures from dimpled textured aluminium; and textured timber paneling to the cabinetry and joinery fixtures.



Designed sustainably with a third of its volume embedded in the ground, energy efficiency is maximised through increased thermal mass and optimising natural climate control. More significantly, the visual impact upon the wild central Otago landscape is minimised: The eye of the viewer able to sweep across a panoramic landscape free of nodes.

Materials with longevity and low-embodied energy are used, and heating is provided by an under floor and overhead system fed largely by a biofuel boiler. Collectively, this adaptation of a traditional relationship with the earth delivers a design that is appurtuant, or "naturally belonging".



Patterson Architects Ltd T. +64 9 303 4004 Email: office@pattersons.com

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The Michael Hill Clubhouse - page : adrian welch / isabelle lomholt