Taumata

Omaha, Auckland, New Zealand 2005

This holiday home is arranged around the rituals of New Zealand beach utopia. It is the control and celebration of the environmental conditions – wind / sun / sea – that makes this design so successful.

Within a suburban context that houses a complexity of form and materials, the palette for this beach house was kept deliberately muted and limited. The emphasis of the sculptural enclosure was on protecting and revealing the functional nodes of the dwelling. The form controls and celebrates the environmental conditions and is arranged around the rituals of New Zealand beachfront living. The house is designed to be self-contained amid a cluttered suburban backdrop, with carefully considered outlooks that frame and draw focus to the beach and adjoining reserve. Detailing is focused on the Pacific Rim tradition of timber-framed construction. The use of the same material, cedar, in a variety of methodologies, produces different qualities of space, opacity and transparency.