A four bedroom family home built on a steep west-facing site on the side of Mangawhau mountain. This is an inner-suburban house in an old, established streetscape of considerable interest. The street frontage has a vertical emphasis consistent with the character of the street, and respects the set-back and textured pattern of the houses which enclose it.
The structure is concrete with a steel frame supporting the upper concrete floor. The east, north and west sides are mostly glazed, with some areas of plywood panel. The south side is completely closed, and clad in cedar weatherboards. The solid south wall recognizes the need for some solid back to sit against and creates a sense of enclosure and protection. The platform is, therefore, really only three-sided.
Design-wise the house attempts to express the idea of a platform, built out from the slope of a mountain. The clear expression of this required an open upper floor, open around the edge to the views and open internally, without sub-dividing walls. This has been achieved along with other practical requirements, such as wall storage. In the New Zealand tradition, a partition has been demolished between two bedrooms to create an artists studio area downstairs.
NZIA Resene Local Award 2004