Glass Walls Make This New Zealand Beach House Look Like It’s Suspended in Midair

December 21, 2023

Glass Walls Make This New Zealand Beach House Look Like It’s Suspended in Midair

It juts from a hillside on steel columns that frame an indoor/outdoor living space.

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Project Details:

Location: Waiheke Island, Auckland, New Zealand

Architect: MacKay Curtis / @mackaycurtisarch

Footprint: 1,500 square feet

Builder: Sheffield Construction

Structural Engineer: Dunning Thornton Consultants

Photographer: Simon Wilson / @simon.c.wilson

From the Architect: "The owner’s brief for this holiday home, located on Waiheke Island, Auckland, was simple; maximize the sun, the views, and the outdoor living. They wanted to spend their time relaxing outside, not inside.

"The house is a simple response to this brief, providing a delicate intervention into the landscape with a small footprint that allows the owners to connect with the surrounding landscape without dominating it, whilst blurring the line between inside and outside.

"The steep, elevated site provides sweeping views over Mawhitipana Bay below and is covered in mature protected Pōhutukawa trees to avoid their roots, while being cradled by their canopies. The deck is north-facing and takes advantage of the views and the sun, while providing large outdoor living areas. The timber box, for sleeping and bathing, is placed above the deck and the area below is enclosed with glass to create a semi-outdoor living space on the deck.

"The ground floor is glazed on all four sides and comprises the kitchen, living, and dining areas. The rear of the ground floor is partially embedded into the ground to allow the required kitchen cabinetry to retreat; so, with sliding glass doors drawn back, the area can expand uninterrupted to include the decks running from east to west, providing the owners with a flexible range of options for being inside, outside, or somewhere in between. The end of the west deck is bookmarked with a freestanding concrete outdoor fireplace.

"The upper floor timber box is held aloft on six steel columns and is clad in a cedar rainscreen with integrated timber shutters. The shutters provide the upper floors with a sense of enclosure, in stark contrast to the transparency of the ground floor spaces below. The large timber shutters hide the full-height windows that slide into a hidden cavity behind the cedar rainscreen. This allows the shutters to be closed while the windows behind are open, to allow the sounds of bird calls and waves on the beach below to filter through. The upper floor comprises a primary bedroom with an en suite, a bunk room to sleep four, a study that can act as an additional bedroom, a bathroom, and a laundry.

"The floor area of this 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom house was deliberately kept compact to use fewer materials during construction, provide a lower life cycle cost with regard to maintenance, future renovations, and to reduce its on-going energy use. The use of concrete and steel was kept to the minimum required. Water is efficiently used with rainwater harvesting, and on-site stormwater disposal and effluent treatment. Natural ventilation and passive solar design principles were key drivers of the house design to lower its energy use."