Waiheke is sort of a magical island, off the coast of Auckland and we're on the
very far side so it's the wildest side of Waiheke and we're surrounded by bush.
At Waiheke houses are you know almost off the grid there's no sewage system
no water system so those elements you provide, the power goes out
quite often so you know you kind of have a sort of a resilience in these houses.
We called this house Waikopua because that's the
name of the bay originally and that would mean still water in Maori.
This site used to be a sort of a colonial farming site they originally cleared the corollary trees
and there were no native trees in this part of the thing except for this one stand of nikau.
A mixture between the sort of planning rules and the stand of nikau meant that we kind of
positioned the house so we were a little bit forward of where we were supposed to
be but it was a kind of a way of protecting that existing stand and some of the most sort of 80,
80-90 years old so and it really formed the basis for the whole design moving forward.
The original house we were sort of you know referring to the kind of classic New Zealand
black weatherboard bach but with a sort of modern form and it was a sort of sculptural approach as
well so you know the aluminum louvers the way the stairs sort of angled up and so for the new part
we kind of just repeated those same maneuvers so this the louvers are exactly the same the double
height space is similar even the detailing of the way the weatherboards come together
but just brought the new into it and just a small refinement I guess
the main pavilion is really the living area that's where where the kind of people come together
and then there's bedrooms above the guest house which had the original boat shed underneath is
kind of a very separate area and quite lovely the the new pavilion with the is again kind of
echoing this this one with the double height space you walk upstairs there's a bunk bed
and then there's two beautiful bedrooms and a bathroom our relationship with Dan didn't just
go through to here's a set of drawings and build it like obviously this project evolved
along the way and it really helped having him at the helm making sure that everything
did fit in and that's how we've kind of ended up with such a a seamless finish on everything
with this house you know it's it is this idea of sort of building in a stream bed so the driveway
is a real focus for arrival and the buildings are sort of spread around that space so as you come
down it around the final corner the new addition is placed there but it's guiding you down and you
can immediately see this sort of shaft through to the water the driveway you know there was a
little bit of back and forth we had some samples presented and I was really keen to kind of reflect
the kind of color of the beach as much as possible so I'd actually gathered up some stones and shells
from the beach and with a bit of ocher pigment and we cast our own little sample of what we wanted to
be reflected and and the idea of putting these timber elements within the driveway to break up
what would have been a kind of quite monolithic element and and you know we worked back and forth
and we've sort of ended up with the perfect color and the perfect sort of design for that
a special part of this project was the custom garage door so we've got a garage door that closes
onto a 103 degree corner but then wraps around and tucks in on a curve so that we've got access for
the client to pull the sea legs out the driveway and then reverse it into the sea lease garage
yeah a campsite is a whack sort of informal living method the idea of having these separate sort of
accommodation units placed in the landscape it gives the sort of informality while a sort of a
maybe an urban house has a very formal approach and a very formal public-private interface here
all of a sudden we could completely switch that out and it worked really well you know people
would greet you on the deck as opposed to sort of there being a door or anything like that so
it's just a throwing away of those sort of urban conventions to make the most of the light but
also to kind of control the harsher light and also really mostly for the sort of sculptural kind of
view of the building from when you look out from sea we incorporated the big sort of louvered fins
they're fixed but they fixed at such an angle that it just sort of stops a really
harsh load coming in at the right time so it's a sculptural device but also a kind of light control
the material choice for this build was really good like we've come back now six seven years
later and it's all silvered off and weathered really well which had to work down here since
it's just a beach house and we've got a quite an intense environment with all the salt spray
zone and everything so I think Daniel's done a real good job kind of choosing the materials to
make that happen the black of the weatherboards is is great because it just fades into the bush you
literally can't see this house from the water the kind of the reddish brown of this just was sort
of echoing the local stone and it just goes so beautifully with the with the green so you know
you see these amazing sort of moments where bushes overhanging on those walls and it's fantastic
at Dash we really want to go through and make sure that we're focusing on working alongside
these architects and collaborating to really get these top-end finishes across the line and and get
into work on these projects that are just stunning architecture that are you know gunna last forever
I think the project will continue to evolve and every time I come
here there's you know it's it's greener and lusher over the years will just be
more and more sort of bedded into the landscape and you know that's we want.