The city beach in Auckland is one of New Zealand’s busiest. To minimize the impact of heavy foot traffic to a new restaurant at the historic Melanesian Mission building, Herbst Architects and Katie Lockhart relied on the surrounding landscape. Katie enlisted her brother Jared Lockhart, the landscape designer and co-owner of Garden Objects in Auckland, to build out the courtyard and to unify the project’s historic and modern architectural elements.
“I avoided straight lines and looked to soften and blur the junction between paving, gravel, and grass where possible,” he says. Working with a restrained materials palette of crushed limestone (also known as “hoggin”) and local New Zealand schist stone pavers, Lockhart came up with a creative solution inspired by a bach (pronounced batch), “the simple holiday houses on the north island of New Zealand—very relaxed, and nothing too flashy.” Here’s a look.
Above: The new building’s architecture relies on gabion walls, laminated pine, cedar slats, spotted gum interior wood, and kwila decking. The historic stone Mission building can be seen beyond the open-air restaurant. For more on the interior design, see our post on Remodelista. Above: The restaurant courtyard has outdoor furniture by Katie Lockhart Studio: cast terracotta-colored concrete furniture, and tables and benches from Street Furniture with bases that Katie powder-coated in Dulux Denim Blue. Jared designed a path of irregular stone slabs; at the base of the pavilion building, the pavers are set close together and after they reach the parkland grass, the pavers drift apart. Above: A Willy Guhl dish-shaped concrete planter (for similar vintage pieces, see 1stdibs) is planted with rosemary, thyme, and sage for the kitchen, along with asters and Scilla natalensis. For the container gardens, Lockhart used crushed shells as mulch. Above: Dwarf eryngium, or sea holly, is one of the many plantings in lightweight white concrete planters. The Heritage-listed building came with planting restrictions for “what could be directly planted into the ground,” so Lockhart designed primarily in pots. Above: The row of white concrete pots are planted with Sophora chathamica (a native coastal Kowhai tree), Salvia “Waverly”, Gaura lindheimeri, Carex testacea, Dwarf eryngium, and rosemary. Above: A view of the courtyard leading out to the beach. To the right, by the blackened steel pergola, are potted citrus trees in terracotta planters.
If you’re designing a courtyard or outdoor dining space, see our Hardscape 101 design guides for guidance about Decks & Patios, Gravel Gardens, and Pavers. For more New Zealand landscape design, see our posts:
