Pete Bossley Architects
Project Location:
Thorne Bay, Auckland
Categories:
Residential Architectural Excellence, Sustainability Award, Cladding Building Envelope
Project Description:
A three bedroom house designed for a small and near-impossible site! Five well established pohutukawa inhabit the site, with intertwined limbs spread across the seaward half of the available building zone. A tight access lane drops from Minnehaha Ave at a very steep 1:3 slope. Much of the site is volcanic rock.
The desire not to damage the trees or their extensive root systems, combined with the steep slope and limited turning circle for cars, the rock outcrops, and the restrictions of height-to-boundary controls necessitated a process of complex analysis to formulate the actual possibilities for building. The result is an innovative building which and is squeezed under, around and between the limbs of the trees, and still manages to take full advantage of the site, the sun and the views.