Paetawa Beach House + Additions

The original 1 bedroom house was completed in 2004 and the stage 2 additions 3 years later

Stage 1 includes the main living space, kitchen, laundry, bathroom and 1 bedroom - enough for the owners to live on site.The original house was designed to be comfortable standing alone, or to be added to in the future. It was a small one bedroom house, located in a small seaside settlement an hours drive north of Wellington City, New Zealand.

Resting on gently undulating dune lands, facing northwest, looking across the road and lower dunes out to the Tasman Sea and Kapiti Island to the west.It is intended for the house to both relate to the horizontality of this landscape and also be at odds with it, as if it had been left there, or washed up. The exterior is composed of a rhythm of painted fibre cement panels. Elements of wall, roof beam, roof layers and brise soleil are expressed separately, with light entering in places in between.

There is a sense of horizontal and vertical layering, and a sense of decomposition or relaxation of parts, as if something had been left high and dry above the tide. The stage 2 additions included a second and more intimate living space opening on to a sheltered courtyard, a study and new main bedroom, bathroom and dressing room. The separate stages are expressed as separate elements linked by a delicate glazed walkway that helps form one side of the courtyard while at the same time allowing views through.