Kamana Residences
Eleven residences above Lake Wakatipu, and 3,250m² of OS-Grey Schist veneer dry stacked — one of Queenstown’s largest current residential developments.
- Main Contractor
- 3 Eyes Construction Ltd
- Location
- Queenstown
- Stone
- OS-Grey Schist Veneer Dry Stacked
- System
- SAMv™ Adhered Masonry Veneer
- On Site
- 2025 – ongoing
Why OS-Grey was specified
Kamana Residences sits on an exposed terrace above Lake Wakatipu, with the Remarkables filling the view east. The architecture is deliberately restrained — long horizontal roof planes, dark joinery, rendered upper forms — and it needed a base material with enough texture to hold its own against that landscape without competing with it.
OS-Grey Schist veneer dry stacked does that work. Laid in tight, level courses with no visible mortar, it reads as a single quarried mass rather than a decorative facing. The cool grey ground picks up the tone of the surrounding rock; the occasional rust and honey-coloured wedge running through the blend keeps the wall from ever reading flat.
Across eleven residences the schist is used where the buildings meet the ground — entry walls, terrace parapets, lift-shaft and stair cores — anchoring each residence to its site. Granite setts run through the driveways and shared approaches, tying the hard landscaping back to the same palette.
The Stonework
OS-Grey schist in place at Kamana — click any image to enlarge.
- Schist Veneer
- 3,250m²Total OS-Grey Schist veneer, dry stacked
- Residences Clad
- 11Across the Kamana complex
- System
- SAMv™Sumner Adhered Masonry veneer, BEAL-appraised
- Warranty
- 50 yrOn the installed veneer system
How to Specify This Schist
Product and system wording for architectural specifications and building consent documentation.
OS-Grey Schist Veneer Dry Stacked
on the SAMv™ System
The finish achieved at Kamana can be delivered anywhere in New Zealand using our adhered masonry system.
Product — copyFormatted for direct inclusion in an Archi-Pack written specification.
Download the Archi-Pack
Typical details, system drawings and BEAL appraisal documentation for OS-Grey Schist Veneer Dry Stacked on the SAMv™ System — suitable for building consent.
The Story
Kamana is a different kind of job to a single residence. The complex is built in stages across a steep lakeview terrace, and the stonework has to slot into a main contractor’s programme that is running structure, joinery, roofing and landscaping at the same time — on a site where the weather does what Queenstown weather does.
Working to 3 Eyes Construction’s programme meant sequencing the veneer building by building, following scaffold as it moved through the complex. Each elevation was set out from the datum before a stone was laid, so that courses run true across openings and around external corners — the returns being where dry-stack work is most easily let down.
Read the full story
- Main Contractor3 Eyes Construction Ltd
- LocationQueenstown
- StoneOS-Grey Schist Veneer Dry Stacked, grey ground with earthen highlights
- SystemSAMv™ Adhered Masonry Veneer over drained, ventilated cavity
- Also suppliedGranite setts to driveways and shared approaches
- On site2025 – ongoing, staged by residence
The OS-Grey blend was chosen for its consistency at volume. On a project of this size the stone has to arrive crate after crate looking like the same wall — a blend that drifts in tone between deliveries shows up immediately across a long elevation. OS-Grey holds its grey ground while still carrying the rust and honey wedges that give a dry-stack wall its depth.
Laying schist dry-stacked at height brings its own discipline. Stone is selected at the scaffold, not on the ground, so each mason works from a spread of material and reads three or four courses ahead. Pieces are dressed to fit rather than forced, and the wall is kept level continuously rather than corrected later.
The parapets and terrace walls carry the most visible work. Because they are seen from above as well as face-on, the top course has to be as considered as the face — a detail that is easy to skip and impossible to fix once the capping and glazing are in.
For Original Stone, Kamana is the clearest demonstration we have of OS-Grey at scale: the same stone and the same system used across a whole development, delivered building by building alongside a main contractor’s programme, and holding its appearance from the first residence to the last.
Installation
Stonework in progress at Kamana — setout, coursing and corner returns.
Specifying OS-Grey Schist on your project?
We’ll courier you a physical sample of the stone used at Kamana, or talk through the detailing for your own build.