Pohutukawa House

This new home occupies a site in suburban Auckland directly adjoining a popular swimming beach and coastal walkway. The family were based overseas and wanted this home as their NZ holiday home to enjoy their summers connecting with extended family and friends living in Auckland. The site is accessed via a long driveway entrance from the rear side, which enters the site 3 stories above the level of the building platform. The design locates the main entrance and garaging at the top level of the site, minimizing the land required for car use, and creating a dramatic vertical descent from the homes entrance to the living spaces at beach level.

Vast Pohutukawa trees overhang the site, creating a dramatic canopy above, which the house opens up to from the interior atrium and the sheltered outdoor courtyard areas. The building form contrasts solid vertical slabs of grey limestone evocative of the adjacent cliff faces, contrasted with long horizontal planes of weathered cedar, silvered like the Pohutukawa tree limbs. Large full height glass walls open the home to the seascape views and capture the filtered light through the trees.