The site is situated 3 hours north of Auckland on the east coast.
The site has 2 special features, a crescent shaped beach that it overlooks and a craggy mountain peak that overlooks it.
The water view is south and the mountain view is north.
The brief was for a beach house primarily for summer use for a family including 2 young children
The client is a keen sailor and commissioned a boat shed as stage 1 of the project.
This structure acts as gate house to the main part of the site where the bach is situated. The boatshed platform allows for parking. The route between the boatshed and the bach is on foot via a pre-existing sheep track. The bach is sited on the crest of the hill. The hill falls away steeply in 3 directions. The building is split into two pavilions. A living pavilion on the crest and a bedroom pavilion a floor below running parallel to the slope. The living pavilion has two decks obliquely adjacent to allow the occupant to track the sun and find shelter from the wind
The upper and lower pavilions are stitched together by a staircase that t-junctions with the bedroom wing. A gabion wall retains the hillside and runs the length of a semi external passage which provides access to bathrooms and bedrooms. The bathrooms have a semi outdoor shower as the only means of bathing.
Beyond the passage the internal stair turns into an external stair which in turn becomes a stepped path leading to the beach. In this way there is a clear journey traced from boatshed to beach through the bach.
The bach is an exploration into summertime structures. We are as a practise interested in the trade-off between convenience and delight. We believe that the more the building demands that you engage with nature and basic daily rituals the more delightful the experience will be.
The pavilions are clad in a black stained western red cedar rainscreen.
Part of the rainscreen hinges or simply peals back to allow for views or privacy and wind protection.
