Outtakes: Devonport house by Michael O'Sullivan

We really like this home in Devonport, Auckland, by architect Michael O'Sullivan of Bull O'Sullivan Architects (who also designed our Home of the Year in 2011). The long form of the home is clad in white weatherboards, while the interior is a deliberate contrast, full of warm timber. In the photo below, the home's co-owner Iain Wood sits just outside the property. Emily Andrews took the photographs, and Yvette Jay styled the shoot.

The opulent herringbone patterned ceiling (below) is a metaphorical protective cloak thrown over the family. The kitchen, with its dramatic onyx island, features north-facing windows with vertical timber mullions that cast ever-changing patterns of light and shadow through the house.

This is the view out the other side of the living space (below), where Iain admires the sight of Auckland's Waitemata Harbour from the sofas designed by his wife, Jes. The pendant lights in this room were designed by Michael O'Sullivan and blown by Lava Glass. The 'Pebble' tables by Jerry Low and Nathan Yong and the 'Caro' rug by Carmen Stallbaumer are both Ligne Roset from Auckland's Domo Collections.

Michael tucked a downstairs rumpus room for Iain Jes' daughters on the lower level of the house and lined the space in ply (below) with a deep red carpet. 

The pared-back main bedroom (below) features monochromatic bed linen from Seneca and a bedside table from BoConcept. Michael's aesthetic reference for the home's white weatherboard exterior and warm interior was Rangiatea, the famous Maori church in Otaki.

The photo below shows the home's long, low roof pitch, which references the 1950s designs by Group Architects, many of which were also constructed on the North Shore.

Outtakes: A Mount Maunganui marvel by Evan Mayo

Mount Maunganui is one of New Zealand's favourite summer destinations, but when Heather Coyne and Mark Winter asked Hamilton-based architect Evan Mayo of Architecture Bureau to design them a holiday home there, they never envisaged they'd end up moving there permanently. 

It's a credit to Evan's smart design that they did so. Heather and Mark found the single-level holiday house he created so pleasing that they decided to move there full-time. The main house, beautifully photographed by Florence Noble, features a handsome, compact, three-bedroom structure with high ceilings made from hoop-line plywood. Importantly, the property's original cottage was retained on the site, and now doubles as a home office and spare bedroom. It's visible in the right of the photo below, and is one of the few original dwellings remaining on the Mount Maunganui beachfront promenade.

The tyre-swing that hangs from the pohutukawa down the drive and the central decking between the original property and the modern building (below) perfectly respond to the brief of this holiday home being "a place for the kids to grow up" says Mark.

The view from the kitchen cleverly looks over the home's living and decking area so Heather and Mark can keep an eye on their grandchildren at play (below) and enjoy the sunshine when they feel like it.

The extended eave over the deck offers shade and shelter (below), while the deck integrates well with the surrounding landscaping, which expertly manages the transition from the lower-level carport to the home itself. Inside, clerestory windows on the home's western elevation allow good ventilation and afternoon light.

The living area features the Focus 'Ergofocus' fireplace designed by Dominique Imbert, which warms the area on cold winter nights. The pendant lights above the kitchen bench were purchased on TradeMe.

 

The shot below shows the connection between the open-plan living space and main bedroom and en suite. Two additional smaller bedrooms are tucked into the home's western side, but when no visitors are staying, the home feels like a simple apartment for Heather and Mark.

The retention of the original cottage (below) is a sympathetic masterstroke. On a street where a number of homes look like they're on steroids, Evan's sensitive design retains something of the diminutive age-old scale of this beachside community, as well as providing privacy for Heather and Mark's new home.

  

The following photograph is from just across the road from the house, with Mount Maunganui beach's wild-daisy covered dunes extending into the distance. 

 

Outtakes: A beautiful beach getaway by Min Hall

It's that time of year when we start fantasising about taking a break - not an all-action holiday, but something quiet and wintry that mostly involves reading books around a fire. This home by architect Min Hall in Golden Bay seems to fit that description perfectly.

First, the plan, which is interesting in its own right. Min broke the house into modules designed to fit around the trees. There is one living and dining area, another wing for the main bedroom and the third for guests (below). The sea is on the eastern boundary, or right-hand side of the plan.

The photograph below (all these images were taken by Paul McCredie) shows the approach to the house, where cars pull up to the back of the house. Min designed the home's modules to be clad in different materials to break up the bulk of the building even further. Covered walkways connect the home's different parts.

Inside, the house has elegantly simple aesthetics - only two pieces of art feature in the property, so not to distract from its surroundings -  yet there are some unique design elements which define the house.

The box window in the dining area (below) is likened to a museum display and exaggerates the feeling of looking inwards through the forest. A Simon James-designed 'Hawk' table accompanies seating by Marc Zuckerman and a smaller rustic 'Uma' bench by Chad Heays.

Huge folding doors off the living area allow a large panorama of the bay (below).

Perhaps even better is the view from the main bedroom where, at high tide, water gently laps on the shore just a few metres away. This is the kind of thing real holidays are made of - when staying in bed seems like one of the best ways to enjoy the views.

Outtakes: Hut on Sleds by Ken Crosson

In our April/May issue, we introduced you to a tiny house, "Hut on Sleds" on the Coromandel Peninsula at Whangapoua Beach designed by Ken Crosson(below). This diminutive, charming holiday home was a finalist in our Home of the Year award 2012, and subsequently shortlisted in the World Architecture Festival's awards. It is such a cleverly built and elegant bach that we wanted to show you more of Jackie Meiring's terrific photographs of it. 

"It had to be a de-mountable house," explains Ken, required by the council because it is located within an erosion zone on the Coromandel coast. Measuring a mere 40 square metres, the house rests on two thick wooden 'sleds' that allows it to be dragged anywhere once uncoupled from power and wastewater and untied from the concrete pads beneath the sleds. It lends an entirely different meaning to the idea of moving house.

The bach has been designed to close up against elements: with doors and shutters closed (as in the photo above) it is truly hermetic to rain and wind gusts. But when the sun is shining, the house opens up to let the outside in (below).

Beyond the demands of its setting, the bach had to fit its clients' desires as well. "It was all about examining what was the real essence of a bach versus a beach house," says Ken. "They wanted something small and experiental. It's tiny, so the challenge was to make it as bachy as possible, and not waste any space in doing that."

That's why there's an intentionally enforced proximity imposed on its occupants : a compact front living and kitchen area flows through a rear bunkroom for the owners' three young children, and the main bedroom is up a ladder from the living room, sharing the same view as downstairs through the huge glass doors.

In the main bedroom (above), there are warm shades of macrocarpa joinery and a remarkable attention to storage detail. Downstairs, each of the childrens' beds (below) has their own storage spaces ("secret cubby holes" says Ken), their own lights and windows. The walls themselves double as floor-to-ceiling shelf space that Ken hopes will accumulate the personal histories of the occupants.

The ladder you use to reach the main bedroom also brings you to the roof terrace, which catches rainwater for the gravity tanks behind (below), and affords great views of the beach and the sunsets.

Inside, there are intentional references made by Ken and his clients to the campground, such as the deliberately rudimentary tap and shower fittings. As Ken says: "You know, where you fill your bucket. It's that kind of idea"

To one side, a second entrance to the house via the shower and bathroom, allows occupants to shower straight away after going to the beach (below).

"It's kind of like a tent," says Ken about the bach's structure. "It's dramatic and vertical. The tent flap [the huge macrocarpa front shutter] is that big door that opens up - a big gesture that embraces the view."

Outtakes: The Onemana Bach by SGA Architects and Unitec students

Our current issue features a short Q+A with architect Dave Strachan of SGA Architects, talking to him about his work with students at Unitec to design and build social housing in collaboration with Auckland's VisionWest.

This isn't the first time Dave and his students have worked together to build something remarkable - last year he and his team designed and built a thrifty bach at Onemana Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula that was a finalist in our 2012 Home of the Year award. (These photographs are by Simon Devitt).

Dave and his students at Auckland’s Unitec School of Architecture were assisted on this project by architect Marshall Cook and builder John Cocks. As a result, all of these students can claim they will leave university with real-world architectural experience: as well as collaborating on the design of the bach, they built it at the Unitec campus before it was trucked to its site on the Coromandel Peninsula.

This is a good point at which to add context to Dave’s remark in our original article accompanying the Home of the Year issue. In it, we quoted Dave as making an unflattering remark about architects in general, but what he was really trying to say was that there is a perception that architects are regarded this way, and that the way students work with tradespeople in this exercise helps to close the gap between architects and the professionals they collaborate with. Our apologies to Dave for allowing this remark to run in the magazine in a way that made it seem like he was slagging off his own profession, when in reality he holds architects and architecture in the highest esteem. 

 

Above: Andrew Morrison relaxes on the deck in a cane-swing chair while Shiree and their daughters Rubie and Billie hang 

out in the kitchen. Morgan Cronin from Cronin Kitchens advised the students on building the cabinetry.

Above: The living room opens out to decks on both sides. Former Unitec student 
Tim Webber designed the table to match the Morrisons' Ikea chairs.

Part of Dave’s mission in leading this project at Unitec is to encourage productive working relationships and good communication between these students when they graduate and the tradespeople they will work with on future architectural projects. Building the bach was a vital part of this process. The students, Dave says, might say, “oh, we just want a nice flat floor to go through there – well that’s wonderful, but how the hell do you do that, to document it and then build it? That makes it a useful part of architectural education”.

Dave was a builder before he became an architect and has the deepest of respect for both professions, as well as a keen awareness of how poor detailing and communication can compromise a project. “Design is what [students] are taught to do,” Dave says. “It’s what most schools of architecture focus on. But a lot of design decisions are made during documentation – everyone thinks it’s the boring bit, but really it’s very much about trying to keep the integrity of the design idea you had at the start.”

Above: The ultimate in indoor/outdoor flow: a floor that continues almost seamlessly from the kitchen out to the deck. 
The deck chairs, covered by Shiree, are from Nest.

Above: A view of the dining area opening onto the second deck. In the background, the barbecue from 
The BBQ Factory echoes the strobe-like effect from the slatted roof.

Above: The barbecue deck is also the perfect place to relax in front of a little fire and watch the starry sky after sunset.

Above: Billie and Rubie playing in the living area with the windows panels drawn back to enjoy the sun. 
Below: Dave and some of the members of Studio 19, his student design team.

Outtakes: William Tozer's London loft

Here are a few unpublished outtakes from a home featured in our current issue, a loft apartment in a former factory in London designed by New Zealand-born architect William Tozer. Photographs are by Emily Andrews.

Seen below, shelving in the TV room - a snug space off a generous, gallery-like hall - displays a collection of artworks and books.

 

A study area is also located off the gallery space, with a built-in desk and shelving. 

 
The dining area (below) features pendant lights by Phillippe Starck, a table by Belgian designer and architect Maarten van Severen and 'Pelle' chairs by Hiroyuki Toyoda.

There's a view of the London skyline from the terrace, which wraps itself around two sides of the apartment. 

   

Tozer's design preserves much of the building's industrial origins, leaving the raw concrete ceiling exposed throughout the building. In the kitchen, pipes for the rangehood are also left exposed. 

The view below looks from the kitchen towards the apartment's living area. The pendant lights over the kitchen island are by Danish designer Cecilie Manz.

This shot of the home's main bedroom shows William Tozer's clever insertion of new elements such as the en suite bathroom, with the dark timber clearly demarcating the old and new structures.

Outtakes: Pahoia house by Warren and Mahoney

Our April/May issue Home of the Year issue featured this finalist in the award, a magnificent home near Tauranga designed by Andrew Barclay and Richard McGowan of Warren & Mahoney.The home is a linear ground-floor arrangement of bedrooms and living areas, with a black main bedroom suite and study on the black upper floor, which is placed transversely to the main volume of the house. In the shot below (all the photographs are by Patrick Reynolds), you can see the house on its beautiful peninsula site.

The home's owners asked Andrew and Richard for a home with sculptural lines, a sense of restfulness, and a focus on quality and permanence. The house was to be "simple and strong and bold" for a life of "reading, privacy and quietness." The two shots below show more clearly the relationship of the upper and lower volumes of the home, with the upper floor projecting over and providing shade for a lower-level terrace.

All the home's main spaces face north, including the outdoor room (shown below), which features a reflecting pool with a large sculpture by Paul Dibble. It's the beautiful outcome of the owners' desire to emulate the European concept of entering a courtyard before moving into the house proper. It's also a way of encouraging sheltered outdoor living by dissolving the barriers between indoors and out. Visitors pass under the bridge-like form of the home's upper floor before walking through the front door, which opens directly into the outdoor room.

The outdoor room is anchored, like the rest of the house, by a wall of travertine that acts as the building's spine (below).

The view below looks back from the outdoor room to the home's main entrance, featuring another sculpture by Paul Dibble across the driveway. 

The owners wanted the home to feel equally comfortable when their six children were around or when just the two of them were home. The main living area, entered from the outdoor room, is an intimate open-plan sequence of sunny sitting area, a kitchen and dining space and a compact formal sitting room with a fireplace.

When the (mostly adult) children are visiting, they have the home's west wing, with three bedrooms and a small living room. At the eastern end of the ground floor is a separate guest suite featuring this elegant ensuite bathroom.

Upstairs, a dark-painted library located behind the main bedroom makes for a comfortable winter evening retreat.

The view below is from the guest suite on the ground floor, a lovely perspective looking north over the estuary. Thanks again to our Home of the Year partner, Altherm Window Systems, for working with us to present these fantastic homes.