What do you do with a Central Otago section full of rocks and schist tors? If you’re the owners of this one, you work with the outcrops as much as possible, and try to weave your new home in and around what nature has delivered. You also insist that the 189sqm hillside retreat frames and highlights the special features, hence a glass corner shower that gets up close and personal with the rock. It was quite the assignment for Hunter & Craig, responsible for the design and construction of the house with two bedrooms and a studio. Tight resource consent requirements dictated the house should not be seen from public spaces and that the natural skyline be preserved. This necessitated significant rock excavation to create a platform for the cedar and metal-clad home, which is just 100mm from vertical rock faces in some places. The floorplan has two sections, each with a bedroom and a bathroom, connected by a long hallway/gallery running between outcrops. Given the build was so tricky, planning and communication with sub-contractors and the owners were crucial. The clients, whose previous home was also built by the firm, had a fixed budget and tight timeline — not that it shows. In a region full of homes with movie-star good looks, this is a genuine rock star.