Ben soaking in the views from the rooftop deck. Photo / Ben Crawford
Ben soaking in the views from the rooftop deck. Photo / Ben Crawford
The Block NZ 2012 winner Ben Crawford and his fiancé Kylie are building their dream home. Share their proud moments and pitfalls here every week.
After 41 weeks and as many Design & Build columns, you'll no doubt be familiar with our philosophy of working with the natural environment instead of against it to create a unique home sympathetic to its surroundings.
We've been meticulous about choosing the right materials to achieve this vision and have invited nature indoors through huge expanses of glass in every room.
It's a balancing act. We are striving to blend into the landscape but we still want to have a liveable home. One way we've achieved this is through our three decks, where we can live outside and be light on the land.
All three are more than a metre from the ground, which means we're required to install a balustrade on them for safety reasons.
We were initially a little gutted, because we were worried they would obscure our views into the bush and ruin our vision for a seamless flow between inside and out. Also, they are often ugly and have little design consideration given to them.
Our builders suggested that we go to a company called Glass Vice.
They'd worked together on the renovation of a nearby cliff-top home and the frameless glass balustrades preserved the sea views and architectural integrity of the house and exceeded all safety requirements.
Buoyed by that prospect, Kylie and I trawled through the Glass Vice website and liked what we saw. So we contacted the company and arranged to pop into its showroom to look at its products.
Watch last week's episode of Ben and Kylie's Brave New Build:
We were greeted like old friends by founder Warwick Allen and his wife Jane. We explained the vision for our home, and then listened to how they might help us achieve it.
I love an innovator and Warwick had us captivated from the get-go as he explained his eight-year journey to create a range of glass balustrading products that minimised or totally eliminated the visibility of any fixings - the final solution coming in the form of his patented Glass Vice clamp, which is now exported around the globe.
Eureka. That was music to our ears, but seeing is believing, so Warwick showed us his product range. I didn't think it was possible to fall in love with something as functional as a balustrade, but Kylie and I did the moment we set eyes on Warwick's new Clearline system. It looked so good and like no other balustrade we'd seen before.
The glass clamps holding the sheets of glass were hidden beneath a sleek aluminium cover panel, which can be powder coated to a colour of your choosing.
Glass Vice's stunning Clearline balustrading system on the deck behind our bedroom pod - the aluminium panels conceal all of the fixings. Photo / Ben Crawford
Set into the panel was a series of small LED lights washing across the deck. We were so impressed with the system that we changed the layout of our two lower decks there in the showroom so we could use more of these show-stopping balustrades into our house.
We then moved on to a solution for the roof-top deck.
Warwick explained they are the only company in the country with a product that can be fixed on to the top of a floating deck like ours.
The vice is attached directly to the top of the deck and clamps on to the sheets of glass, leaving a small gap beneath that makes cleaning a breeze.
Plus you only need two fixings for every 1.8m piece of glass, keeping the visual impact to an absolute minimum.
Sold, with LED lights centred in the deck below each pane of glass, please.
Anthony installing the Glass Vice clamp onto our rooftop deck. Photo / Ben Crawford
With our order placed, Warwick said the team would be on site the following week to fit everything off.
Once again they surprised us. The installation was fast and efficient and over the course of a few days, our decks were adorned with their stunning new balustrades.
They look absolutely beautiful and we can't wait to show them off to our family and friends. They enhance the building's aesthetic appeal and make the decks inviting and usable across every square metre, while preserving our outlook and our original design philosophy.
In fact the finish is so integrated and free from obstruction that it's easy to forget there is any glass there at all.
Anthony from Glass Vice ensuring the top fixing clamps on our rooftop deck are perfectly aligned. Photo / Ben Crawford
