Habitus Boatsheds / Strachan Group Architects + Rachael Rush

Architects: Strachan Group Architects, Rachael Rush
Location: Takapuna Beach Holiday Park 22 The Promenade, Takapuna, Auckland 0622, New Zealand
Design Team: Dave Strachan, Pat de Pont, Jessica Knight. Rachael Rush
Area: 480.0 sqm
Photographs: Patrick Reynolds Photography

Builder: Gary Bonham, Bonham Builders & Management
Engineer: Thorne, Thorne Dwyer Structures and Soil and Rock (Geotech)
Quantity Surveyor: MCB (Paul Ranum)
Landscape Designer: SGLA
Interior Designer, Kitchen Designer: SGA
Kitchen Manufacturer: Matisse (Archlinea) and Wackrows Joinery

From the architect. On a constrained, compact urban site, a stones throw from Takapuna Beach, the three-stepped gables of these black ‘boatsheds’ appropriately reference our boating and beach culture. The sliding forms reveal a solution beyond the standard connotations of a home, a bespoke incubator for the clients’ lifestyle.

The corner site, challenged by two 5m front yards and the blunt presence of a three-storey neighbour hard on the North-West boundary, stimulated an approach of layered complexity with ample transparency to capture light, sun and glimpses of the pohutukawa and baiting ocean.

The kitchen and bathroom are no exception. The kitchen, at the centre of the home connects both visually and physically to multiple, layered indoor and outdoor spaces with views across the lawn to the sea beyond. Doors slide back seamlessly to integrate the kitchen bench with the sheltered and private west facing courtyard and barbeque area. Stainless steel has been used almost exclusively to create a functional and industrial centre to the home. In addition to stainless steel benches and appliances, Archlinea modules and a customised range-hood that incorporates a hanging rack for pots have been used.

The ground floor bathroom was approached as the ‘beach’ bathroom with direct connection from the outdoors and service areas such as the laundry. Robust and low maintenance materials continue from the outside in to function as an easy clean ‘wet room’ able to tolerate sand, salt and dirt. Also accessible from the interior, the challenge lay in ensuring that the bathroom could still function aesthetically and practically as the main bathroom of the house in all seasons, for their sons but also for their guests.

In contrast, the master bathroom was approached as a luxurious and private retreat. The spacious layout with freestanding bath, separate shower, and double basin again has the ability to open up to the outdoors achieved by corner full height sliders, however privacy is retained by vertical louvres (also mechanically adjustable). Natural Blue Stone/Basalt are used for the vanity tops and the black / timber theme used elsewhere in the house is continued. Custom-made black aluminium shower trays and folded slats were designed for the level entry shower base where the porous natural stone was impractical.