Maraetai, Beach House

Old family friends of Sophie's wanted to finally build a new family beach house after years living on site in run down drafty baches. Sophie developed a scheme consisting of three light, pitched roof pavilions on a concrete podium. Dug back into the hill above the beach, the steep contour, northern aspect and amazing views across to Waiheke gave us a challenging yet rewarding site. The sites were reinvented. Two narrow sites were amalgamated to allow the house to sit back into the hill across the contour, lifting out with a northern deck and creating sheltered courtyard spaces out of the prevailing westerly and onshore winds. On site water collection was required for domestic use and for fire fighting. A huge tank was built in under the garage. Consideration was given to glazing placement and integrating thermal mass to provide a warm and healthy home for the future. This was a project which owes credit to Vivienne and Steve T from Thorne Dwyer Structures and the talented Marcus of LC Construction Ltd. The bach is no longer the summer retreat - but has become the clients second home year round. We see this as a measure of design success. Completed 2017 in conjunction with Sophie Wylie.