Less is more’ sums up this extensive alteration of an architecturally designed 1980’s house on a busy beach. The removal of 80’s style excesses has exposed a well proportioned courtyard house with modern bones. Skilful reconfiguring of key walls and the staircase has opened the home up to the light, creating new circulation and visual links. Although the aesthetic has been modernised with all new door and window joinery, quality internal materials and fittings, the house has developed a classic seaside feel that is relaxing and not too precious.

Crisply detailed, well articulated and clean spaces both inside and out, are combined to make full use of every inch of this tight site to create a home that takes full advantage of its superb views while protecting the owners’ ability to live in privacy.

Dramatically sited on an exposed hill overlooking the ocean, this home protects and shelters its occupants. Carefully detailed, with a simple palette of materials, the house does not try to compete with its dramatic context. The creation of an internal courtyard, where visitors and occupants can relax while still taking in the stunning views, provides the ultimate in protected space. The house, which can accommodate numerous guests while retaining privacy for the owners, is an unmistakable expression of New Zealand vernacular.

A significant late-1960s house by émigré achitect Franz Iseke sits within stone’s throw of a cluster of several modernist gems in a Meadowbank gully. The latest stage of this sensitive renovation has both restored the house’s original programme from a previous mangling and given much-needed space to the current owners. Echoing the existing language of the house, the new second-storey addition is both respectful and confidently expressive in its own right.

Significantly outshining its pedestrian neighbours in every way, this confident hilltop building uses a hunkered-down, shelter from the storm language that is entirely appropriate to its exposed cliff edge site high above Muriwai Beach. It is careful to capture and frame the spectacular views but its confident use of in situ poured concrete and wood also reassures occupants that the house can ride out the wildest storms the Tasman can throw at it. Inside, the houses’s volumes are airy, elegant and restrained in their considered use of materials, lending the building a sense of calm, solidity and poise.