Waiheke House by Cheshire Architects

SUPREME WINNER PURPLE PIN & GOLD PIN — Residential architecture

Covered with native bush and with a steep contour running down to the water’s edge, much of this property located on the furthest reaches of Waiheke Island is unhabitable, but the owners had long used it as an escape from their fast-paced city lives and saw an opportunity to establish something special here. Entertainers, they sought a home in which they could dine with up to 30 guests, and wanted to concentrate on this living aspect without the need for endless supporting spaces such as guest bedrooms. This presented Auckland’s Cheshire Architects with a wonderful opportunity to build with control, placing value on space and selecting just a few special materials with which to gild the home’s surfaces.

The owners had camped and picnicked on the building platform for many summers, developing a close relationship with the lawn, the vines below it, the Gulf and its islands. This was the natural resting place for their new home. It’s very exposed up on this ridgeline, though, so a sense of permanence in the shifting landscape was important, balancing exposure with containment. The home needed to sit low and be discreet within the landscape. It needed to be made from natural materials that offered a sense of mass and perpetuity, as if the house had always been here.

The dwelling was intended to support a version of life that rejects the digital and leaves the hum of the city far behind, delivering a slower rhythm that’s tuned in to the environment. The expert planning of the spaces, their volume or lack of, the degree of exposure to light and view, and the sound of footsteps crunching on fine pebbles or pattering softly on solid stone bring into focus what already existed. Tall and full of light, the living rooms are open to the outlook, while the more private spaces face inward and are contained by stone rather than glass. >

The dwelling was intended to support a version of life that leaves the hum of the city far behind, delivering a slower rhythm that’s tuned in to the environment.