A River View and a Vision: Greg & Maree’s SIPs High-Performance Home Journey Hamilton

At TAWA Architecture, we love working with clients who are deeply invested not just in the home they’re building, but in the way it will shape their life for decades to come. Recently, we sat down with Greg and Maree, the proud owners of one of our high-performance SIPs homes located just outside Hamilton. Their story is one of family, forward-thinking, and the kind of living that connects people and place.

Returning Home to the Waikato with Purpose

Greg and Maree's story begins in the South Island, where they lived for nearly 25 years after leaving the Waikato in the early ‘90s. But with both their sons settling back up north - and grandchildren now in the picture - the draw to return was too strong to ignore.

"I said, I’m coming back," Greg tells us. "My brothers and sisters are here… it’d be quite nice to live somewhere rural or semi-rural, but where we could live in reasonable proximity to one another."

Their vision wasn’t just about lifestyle - it was about creating a space where family could thrive together, where after-school hours might mean a visit to the grandparents instead of daycare.

Inspired by Efficiency and Sustainability

As an accountant, Greg brings a pragmatic lens to building. But it’s clear his motivation for choosing a SIPs home goes beyond the numbers.

"I’ve got deep pockets and short arms," he jokes, "so I’ve always liked the idea of not paying a big power bill every month."

Greg’s long-standing interest in sustainable and passive house principles naturally aligned with the performance benefits of SIPs. While the final dollar-for-dollar comparison may be complex, the value of a home that’s warm, efficient, and built to last was undeniable.

A Design That Resonated

When the initial design concept was presented, Greg and Maree immediately connected with it.

"I certainly looked at the design and thought, oh, I could live in that house."

They were drawn to the open plan layout, indoor-outdoor flow, and the thoughtfulness behind every spatial decision - including a simple yet meaningful request: a view of the river from the kitchen sink.

"That’s when I think I’d look at the view the most."

This detail - small in isolation, yet deeply personal - encapsulates the essence of their journey: a house not just as shelter, but as an extension of life’s rhythms.

High-Performance Highlights

Location: Semi-rural setting just outside Hamilton
Home Type: High-performance SIPs construction

Key Architectural Design Features:

• Open-plan living with strong indoor-outdoor connection

• Thoughtful orientation for sunlight and views

• Kitchen with river-facing aspect by request

• Outdoor living zones designed to respond to wind direction

• Private yet interconnected spaces ideal for multigenerational family life

Performance Benefits:

• Excellent thermal efficiency and airtightness

• Low ongoing running costs

• Comfortable, consistent indoor temperatures year-round

• Future-ready sustainability embedded in the building envelope

Ready for What’s Next

With move-in day approaching, the anticipation is building. From the flexible outdoor spaces shaped by prevailing winds, to the promise of a warm, efficient interior, Greg and Maree are ready to embrace the next chapter of their lives - rooted in family, comfort, and smart design.

"Really, I’m looking forward to living in a house like that," Maree says, a smile in her voice.

We’re honoured to have been part of their journey, and we can’t wait to see how this home supports and grows with their family for years to come.

High-Performance home utilising Formance SIPs panels

Perfectly positioned on the banks of the Waikato River

Appreciating the stunning Waikato river views from the kitchen window

Formance SIPs panels

What is a high-performance home?

High-performance is part of the sustainability conversation we have with all of our clients from the outset. It is a critical component of the building design that provides the long-term efficiency of your home. It is also very important to consider and incorporate the other areas of sustainability, such as environmental products, low waste, landscaping, people, etc. It is such a large topic and there are many solutions or areas that can be used.

At TAWA, high-performance is designed into all of our building designs, whether it be in the form of a certified PassivHaus, solar-passive home or commercial project. This is where we focus intensely on the building envelope. Our extensive experience in designing high-performance homes in New Zealand over the past 10 years and our specialised Passivhaus software enable us to provide tangible performance-driven results. The key with this approach is that it uses the unique climate data from your site so that the conversations about performance can be accurate, and happen before you start your build, therefore allowing projects to be priced and conversations about building performance and cost to be held early.

The performance conversation is just one part of the equation; the project still needs to meet your architectural and design requirements. No two homes we have designed have been the same (to date), so this approach allows us to be flexible in the design of the home, but keep this conversation at the forefront. We utilise several different products and strategies to achieve the agreed performance gains, and we tailor this to each client.

What we are trying to achieve in a high-performance home is to balance the “gains” with the “losses” so that we keep the internal environment of your home as even as possible with little to no heating requirement. This therefore reduces on-going livings costs, and improves the living experience that comes with being in a high-performance home, or Passivhaus.

Gains are the sum of the heating gains for a project, such as; sun-light entering the home, occupants and heating sources. The losses are a sum of the heating lost through the walls, roof, floor, ventilation, etc. The designers skill and experience comes to the forefront in maximising the gains, and the technical understanding of constructing homes for performance is where the losses are managed. Below is a simple example of what that could look like for a home.

We encourage you to start having conversations about performance, and demand to know what you are paying for in terms of performance for your next building.

“THE PERFORMANCE OF A HOME IS ABOUT BALANCING THE ‘GAINS’ WITH THE ‘LOSSES’ TO KEEP THE INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT OF YOUR HOME AS CONSISTENT AS POSSIBLE WITH LITTLE TO NO HEATING REQUIREMENT”.