Archimedia Group Ltd

Hekerua Bay Residence

Hekerua Bay Residence
© Patrick Reynolds

HEKERUA BAY RESIDENCE

Archimedia

ARCHITECTS
Archimedia

ARCHITECT IN CHARGE
Lindsay Mackie

OTHER PARTICIPANTS
Canam Construction, Ormiston Associates, Green Group Ltd, eCubed Building Workshop, Lindsay Mackie, Surya Fullerton, Jonathan Boersen, Boffa Miskell

AREA
390.0 sqm

YEAR
2014

LOCATION
Auckland, New Zealand

CATEGORY
Houses

Text description provided by architect.

The site is an elevated promontory above a rocky cove at the western entrance to a double bay on Waiheke Island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf. The site slopes north-east toward a reef and sandy beaches opposite.

Hekerua Bay Residence
© Patrick Reynolds
Hekerua Bay Residence
© Patrick Reynolds

The house is a collaboration with the Client, an engineer with meticulous attention to detail, who owns a winery on the island.

His sensibility for materials is directed by his Cypriot heritage and the sensory experiences founded in his Mediterranean culture. His brief was a single line instruction to enhance the experience of the occupants.

Hekerua Bay Residence
© Patrick Reynolds
Hekerua Bay Residence
© Patrick Reynolds

As a structural engineer he has an affinity with concrete and in situ concrete was defined as the core material for the structure. The Client sourced travertine, remembered from his childhood that matched the colour of the beaches across the bay and the clay-coloured sandstone of nearby island cliffs.

The curved concrete forms resonate with the early 20th century gun emplacements that dot the margins of the Hauraki Gulf - rudimentary, part buried, part exposed, partly anchored, partly projecting from the land.

From these four posits - a specific material sensibility, an engineered concrete shell structure, the inclined topography of the place and the forms of the old concrete buildings nearby - the house emerged.

Hekerua Bay Residence
© Patrick Reynolds
Hekerua Bay Residence
© Patrick Reynolds

The site is rebuilt as a series of platforms for living, aligned with the oblique contour, with a cubist pool of water part embedded, part exposed on the west edge.

The master suite, a reading room, a second guest suite and a studio are suspended above these platforms. Between them they create a stage for human interaction.

This stage opens and closes to the exterior entirely, combining with the terraces and the pool to create a continuous surface bridging inside and out.

Hekerua Bay Residence
© Patrick Reynolds
Hekerua Bay Residence
© Patrick Reynolds

The east and west elevations most clearly articulate the separation between site and superstructure and the single continuous line that traverses the outer edges of the concrete shells.


Hekerua Bay Residence
Site Plan
Hekerua Bay Residence
Floor Plan
Hekerua Bay Residence
Floor Plan
Hekerua Bay Residence
Floor Plan
Hekerua Bay Residence
Floor Plan
Hekerua Bay Residence
Section


Hekerua Bay Residence
Elevation
Hekerua Bay Residence
Elevation
Hekerua Bay Residence
Elevation
Hekerua Bay Residence
Elevation

Archimedia Group Ltd
T +64 9 3776414
Archimedia Group Ltd
Level One, Shed 19, Princes Wharf, Auckland 1010, New Zealand