Project: Waiatarua House
Architects: Hamish Monk Architecture
Location: New Zealand
Area: 2,421 sf
Photographs by: Mark Smith
Waiatarua House by Hamish Monk Architecture
The Waiatarua House is a beautiful modern retreat designed by Hamish Monk Architecture. It is placed right in the middle of New Zealand’s outstanding flora. Built on two levels, this modern home sports a rather contemporary exterior with sharp edges and most importantly – plenty of open spots that deliver the stunning sights of the landscapes around, to the inside of the home.
The brief was for a new house on a challenging, steep site in the Orakei creek gully. One of the design challenges was to insert a bold (in size and placement) intervention into a sensitive bush reserve whilst still maintaining a sense of modesty and poetic. The desire was to seek out a quiet architectural expression, one that is devoid of excessive articulation and noise; a silent witness to its surroundings.
Conceived as sculptural components the design plays on purity and scale of the program articulated through three simple elemental forms that step down the site towards the creek – the roof of one floor creating a level platform for the next.
From the point of entry the house offers a range of spatial experiences across the width of the floorplate; transitioning from a hunkered almost subterranean position in the landscape to an elevated position perched in the tree canopy.
