Canterbury
South Island



In partnership with Hemp Technologies, PurePanel, QuantumX and New Zealand Sustainable Forestry Products, this energy efficient and sustainable home will be built in Canterbury, South Island, starting 2012







Owner
Robin & Jill Curtis


Trees of New Zealand:

The pohutukawa tree (Metrosideros excelsa) with its crimson flower has become an established part of the New Zealand Christmas tradition. This iconic Kiwi Christmas tree, which often features on greeting cards and in poems and songs, has become an important symbol for New Zealanders at home and abroad.


Today many school children sing about how ‘the native Christmas tree of Aotearoa’ fills their hearts ‘with aroha’.
A gnarled, twisted pohutukawa on the windswept cliff top at Cape Reinga, the northern tip of New Zealand, has become of great significance to many New Zealanders. For Maori this small, venerated pohutukawa is known as ‘the place of leaping’. It is from here that the spirits of the dead begin their journey to their traditional homeland of Hawaiiki. From this point the spirits leap off the headland and climb down the roots of the 800-year-old tree, descending into the underworld on their return journey.


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