Shingo, who teaches Japanese at Lytton High School and has a flare for design, took the basic A1 Homes plan and modified it to suit what the couple were looking for.
The plan also had to incorporate a suite of rooms for Anzhela who runs Izumi Beauty Therapy from home.
Maximising spaceShingo raised the ceiling to a lofty height of 3.6m to 3.8m in the living area and created a wall of sliding glass doors to maximise the feeling of space and the view of the hills, sky and clouds.
He added a pair of tall slim vertical windows looking out to the road and tipped another window of the same dimensions on its side to bring even more light into the house from its position near the top of the wall.
An engineer was involved in the planning stages to ensure the structures around the windows and massive sliding doors were adequately braced.
A steel beam runs the length of the room above the three 2.5m-wide door panels, and all the walls are reinforced.
The windows are double-glazed so on a sunny day, the house warms up and retains the heat. A heat pump adds to the warmth on cold days.
A 3m-high, clear glass door from the hall to the kitchen is a stunning feature. With its heavy metal handle and 1cm thick-glass, the tall door gives the impression of an expensive resort.
The hall ceiling has also been elevated to 3.6m and a large skylight added to let in bright sunshine, giving a light, airy feel to an often dark part of a house.
The flooring throughout the living area, hall and Anzhela’s beauty treatment studio is hard-wearing white laminate.
The concrete tilt slab walls are exposed in the studio but far from being plain grey and featureless, the surface is a mass of swirls and interesting patterns from the watering process it underwent while drying.
Raised in Japan for the first 18 years of his life, Shingo says he sometimes misses the architecture, design, aesthetics and attention to detail of his motherland, so he has incorporated many of these aspects into the furnishing of their new home.
Homewares from JapanThe interior decor is far from the traditional, functional Kiwi-style, thanks to Shingo’s avid interest in product design and the homewares he imports from Japan and elsewhere. There’s an elegant bicycle by Tokyobike Company, a carry bag made from recycled leather, a heavy iron teapot designed to retain the heat, garden trowels, Japanese cups and coffee filters, all handmade products from a variety of home industries.
The kitchen wall lights are by Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen and L’Oiseau, the wooden bird on the dining table, is by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec from Vitra.
The dining chairs are by the famous American furniture designer Charles and Ray Eames from Herman Miller furniture company. The leather and wood recliner is Shingo’s favourite spot to play his vintage 1945 Gibson J45 guitar. The charcoal couch is by Freedom Furniture and stand lamp by ECC lighting.
Before they began to build on the section, Shingo and Anzhela performed a traditional Japanese wine, rice and sea salt blessing of the land.
“In Japan, a Shinto Buddhist priest is called to bless the site before construction begins and also when a tree is cut down. He performs a ceremony using sake (rice wine) and sea salt and says prayers to show respect for the land,” says Shingo.
“We wanted to do the same here, to show our respect for the land and the tangata whenua who were here before us. We moved into our new home in May 2015 and living here is everything we hoped it would be.
“We are very happy here and believe the home has a sense of peace, ease and prosperity. Life is simple and pure. We love the lifestyle here and our house is a reflection of that.”
