Hone worked with First Light Studio on their project in Kennedy’s Bush in the Port Hills. Engaged by the client to negotiate the landscape covenant requirements to provide habitat for native fauna and deliver an aspirational concept design to match the high quality of the house build.

Our clients, both working in the medical field, sought a tranquil retreat from the busyness of daily life and a place that grounded them to the landscape they have connected so deeply with. Inspired by the mokomoko (lizard), the design uses kōhatu (rock) stacks to shape the sloping landscape. Like the house build, the landscape design is of two parts.

1 Refined geometries welcome people to the front door—a ‘zen’ garden & water feature provide calm before entering the home.

2 The wider landscape is one of biodiversity, habitat, wellbeing and outlook, where organic forms work with the landscape using volcanic rock and ecologically appropriate plant species to define the outdoor spaces.

Location: Ōtautahi (2025)
Client: Private
Role: Project Landscape Architect 
Collaborators: First Light Studio