Waimarama Beach House

NZIA Hawke’s Bay Architecture Award, 2008

“This combines a successful balance of the requirements for a family home with the more relaxed lifestyle of a bach in its beach setting.” NZIA Awards Jury 2008

The client sought a family house on the beach, with four bedrooms plus studio and study.  In this coastal setting, sun, views and habitable outdoor spaces alternately protected from and catching sun and wind were a priority.

Combining a rational geometrical sensibility with a romantic attachment to the land and tradition, the house consists of two interlocking volumes: a white bedroom wing loosely derived from the repetitious plan of ‘shearers’ quarters’, inserted into a double height 'timber ‘crate’.

More than just a 'beach house', this is an all-year round dwelling.

High levels of insulation, heat pump technology and solar panels on the roof, augment the large double glazed openings that capture sun and trap heat in winter. The large sliding doors open up to the cooling sea breezes in summer.

The composition of natural oiled cedar weatherboards, painted plywood and weathered zinc sheet both connects the house to the landscape and some older local traditions, but equally clearly sets it apart from much of the local built context.  This is a house strongly connected to the land, but prepared, if the sands and tides shift against it, to move.