Journal | August 2021
WAIHEKE HOUSE - UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Elevated and panoramic living is balanced by privacy and retreat through careful material and spatial handling.
Waiheke’s steep terrain creates the twin opportunities to bed down into the hillside and embrace a big landscape and view. This site in Church Bay allowed us to balance these experiences of enclosure and expansiveness in a new two storey, three-bedroom house. Defined by economic materials and efficient detailing, our design aimed for clarity in the spaces and structure. Utilising steel, plywood and solid timber, we’ve shaped elegant, domestic interiors that resonate with their bush and beach setting.
Entry is through the ground floor, past guest bedrooms and a small lounge, to reach the living floor via a central timber staircase. A concrete-block cube cocoons the main bedroom suite, a private and intimate space that has acoustic separation from the main activity of the house.
The elevated top floor is designed as the optimal living and viewing platform. From the eastern window with its morning sun to the bay view to the north, around to a west-facing window and glimpse of vineyards, the owners enjoy a 270-degree view. Through site surveys and sun analysis, we calculated the ideal position and height of floors and window openings, so the family feel nestled in the hillside, as well as enjoying this dramatic framing of the landscape.
The top floor is defined by a generous roof and eave that extends two metres to the north to provide shelter for an outdoor dining space, and to shade the ground floor from the summer sun. With no reticulated water on the island, a larger roof also collects a greater volume of water for household use. From a distance, the strong but low-profile roof line softens the house with shadow and visually reduces its apparent height, so it recedes into the bush.
