Remuera.

When it’s the right location but the wrong house, you have a couple of options, renovate or rebuild. That’s the situation one family faced in the Auckland suburb of Remuera when deciding what to do with the ex-state house they had purchased.

“At 109sqm the house was too small for their requirements; the discovery of asbestos sealed the deal and the house was demolished and removed,” says Scott Thrupp, Managing Director of Ninety45.

“What remained was a 635sqm site that was fairly flat for around two-thirds of its length before rising steeply at the back. The architectural plan incorporated the change in slope into the design creating a series of split levels within the home.

Scott says that while the build was pretty straightforward, a number of complexities meant it required a high level of detail and skill.

“The site required a lot of piling so we made the decision to use screw piles, which massively speeded up the process, allowing us to install 50–60 piles a day. The same process would have taken weeks if we had gone with traditional piles.

“During this process we uncovered a massive hole, which turned out to be part of an old river bed full of decomposed vegetation, which obviously added another level of intricacy to the process.”

The new house is 244sqm with a further 200sqm of external paved areas with both spaces incorporating a lot of in situ concrete.

“Internally, the floors in the main living areas are polished concrete with exposed aggregate. A lot of planning went into achieving the satin-like finish, which required a lot of flooding of the slab at the start and then ensuring everyone stayed off it for two weeks.

“Similarly, all of the concrete staircases were completed in situ and installed right at the start of the project, which required ongoing protection of their surfaces during the construction phase. Personally, I think all of the in situ concrete stairs and floors are stand out features.”

Part of the home’s street appeal is its striking black and white scheme, which Scott says also required a high level of skill to get right.

“The white pavilions feature a bagged-brick finish with inset battens on the gable ends, which, as well as providing visual interest, on the street-facing facade conceal a bifolding slatted screen that provides privacy while mitigating solar gain.

“The black pavilions are clad in a metal snap-lock profile. The metal cladding was tricky to seamlessly integrate in with the joinery, but the end result is well worth the added complexity.

“The whole house has been highly specced and detailed, starting with the timber framing, which is 6x2 rather than the standard 4x2 and then there’s the skillion roof treatment, which resulted in a lot of work-arounds in order to conceal services that would normally be housed in the roof space.

“The final detail is, quite literally, the cherry on top, or in this case the chimney. The homeowners wanted to create something that complemented the architectural detailing of the home and therefore wanted a free-standing element, which doesn’t sound like much but was actually quite fiddly. We ended up making a chimney cowl out of stainless steel so that it was self-supporting with no tie backs to the house.

“All of these little additions certainly add up to create an exemplary whole and the owners have created for themselves a resort-style home where they can feel like they're on holiday all year round.”

Awards: Gold award at the 2020 Registered Master Builders House of the Year Auckland Region.

Words by: Justin Foote