By Parsonson Architects
The house is located at Pekapeka Beach, a small seaside settlement 1 hours drive north of Wellington City. It is a small 1 bedroom house for a working couple. He works in Wellington and she in Palmerston North. The house is set on gently undulating dune lands, facing northwest, looking across the road and lower dunes out to the Tasman Sea and Kapiti Island to the west. It is intended for the house to both relate to the horizontality of this landscape and also be at odds with it, as if it had been left there, or washed up.
The exterior is composed of a rhythm of painted fibre cement panels. Elements of wall, roof beam, roof layers and brise soliel are expressed separately, with light entering in places in between. There is a sense of horizontal and vertical layering, and metaphorically a sense of dislocation and relaxation of parts, as if a creature or construction had been left high and dry above the tide.
Parsonson Architects was established in 1987 and is based in Wellington, New Zealand. The practice has focused primarily on individual houses and aims to produce work with a high level of sensitivity and discipline, engaging the spirit of each owner and site. More recently projects have included apartment buildings, retail fit outs in North America and Europe and competition entries across a variety of building types and project scales.
The practice is recognised as consistently delivering work of excellence, represented by the major awards and regular features in both local and international architecture and design publications.