Vert-X provided the structural design for a bespoke two-storey home beside the lagoon in Palmerston North, completed in 2023 with architect Brendan Johnstone of Vector Architecture and builder Ehaus Manawatū. We designed the floors, foundations, beams, wall bracing, and a bespoke stair.

The architecture put large windows toward the views and generous open-plan spaces at the heart of the house - which left very few solid walls to brace it. On a two-storey home that is a real structural problem: the bracing has to be there and has to work, without closing down the glazing and open space the design is built around.

We solved it with bracing portal frames and SED (specific engineering design) plywood bracing elements, with substantial structural steel worked into the timber-framed structure so the walls could stay open and glazed where it mattered. The floor sits on an EPS pod raft slab, and the package ran to around twenty beams plus the bespoke stair. The result is a premium home that holds its structure quietly out of the way - keeping the open spaces and the views the house was designed around.