New Houses
Ground-up homes designed from the land outward, before a single room is drawn.
Private Residential Architecture
Houses that listen to their site.
We take on a small number of houses each year and stay with each one from the first site visit to the last handrail.
Built Works · Plates I to VIII
House on Cormorant Head
From the ridge path · duskSet low into a north-facing ridge, this house steps down the slope in three shallow terraces. The brief asked for one generous room and several small ones, and a roofline quiet enough not to compete with the water.
The Ridge House
Among the trees · overcastA single-storey house wrapped around an existing stand of trees, built so that none of them needed to come down. Every room looks out at a different one.
Sable Point House
From the south paddock · duskA weekend house on an exposed coastal block, built low and heavy against the wind, with a single long window that runs the width of the main room.
Tell us about your site.
We take on a small number of houses each year. If you have a site and a rough sense of what you want to build, we would like to hear about it.
Saltgrass Court
The walled court · duskA courtyard house on a flat coastal plain, turned inward around a walled garden. From the street it shows almost nothing; every room faces the court.
Quarry Garden House
The quarry floor · overcastBuilt into the floor of a disused quarry, with the rock face left as the rear boundary wall. The house takes its levels from the cut, not the other way around.
Longwater House
Across the dam · duskA single long pavilion carried over a farm dam on concrete blades, so the water passes underneath rather than around. The whole house is one room deep.
Aldermoor Barn
The main hall · lamplightThe reworking of a nineteenth-century barn for a family of five. New work is set inside the old shell and never touches the original timber frame.
House at Brack Hill
From the lower terrace · duskA split-level house on a steep suburban block that had been passed over for decades. Two modest volumes step with the grade, and the garden takes the rest.
What We Take On
Renovations & Additions
Reworking existing houses without losing what made them worth keeping in the first place.
Concept & Feasibility
Early advice on a site or brief, before you commit to land or a full design.
Contract Administration
We stay on through construction, so the built house matches the drawings.
How We Work
Principal-led, start to finish
A principal is on every project from the first site visit to the final walkthrough, never handed off partway through.
A small, deliberate caseload
We run a limited number of houses at once, on purpose, so none of them sit waiting on the others.
Carried through construction
We do not stop at the drawings. We stay on site through the build to see the design through.
The Studio
Thorne & Vale is a residential studio working on a small number of houses at a time. We begin with the site, not a style, and stay with each project from the first sketch to the last inspection.
Common Questions
- How many houses do you take on each year?
- A small number, taken on one after another rather than all at once. A principal stays on your project from the first site visit to the final walkthrough.
- Do you design for difficult or exposed sites?
- Yes. Steep, exposed and awkward sites are often where the better houses come from. We start with a full read of the land before anything is drawn.
- Will you stay involved once the design is finished?
- If you want us to. We can hand the drawings to your builder, or stay on through construction so the finished house matches what was drawn.
- Do you take on projects outside your home city?
- Yes. We travel for the right site. Distance has rarely been the reason a project did not happen.