As COVID changed their working arrangements, our homeowners saw the opportunity to escape Auckland for Hawke’s Bay and to build the kind of strongly architectural home they had always wanted.

The site was one of 18 lots in the Matarua Rise development in Havelock North, Hawkes Bay and looks over a deep escarpment and across the hills to the ocean.

The brief required a simple-form Modernist house, with floor to ceiling glass to make the most of the expansive views and privacy the site offered.

High ceilings and a restrained material palette of concrete, timber and bricks were other requirements of the brief.

The result is a jewel of a house with views from every room, surprisingly high ceilings and a brick feature wall that helps define the spine of the house which the rooms circulate off.

This wall also brings a pop of colour into the interior’s predominantly neutral palette.

Indoor/outdoor flow via large sliders allows the living area to be entirely opened up and gives access to the exterior from all the bedrooms.

Overhanging eaves provide shade and an outdoor living room is tucked neatly into the plan to provide a shady sheltered spot.

Arriving at the modern, low-slung house there is little evidence of the openness of the front façade besides a sneaky peek through the glass entry panels which look all the way through.

Core elements

The design is deceptively simple and strongly geometric, with three core elements.

A single red brick wall forms the backbone of the house, running the length of the southwest elevation.

This is the only solid exterior wall, with other walls being in glass.

The rich-toned wall supports a flat, deep roof plane that floats above the floor plate.

The three cedar-clad boxes are the third element, one forming the double height garage and the other two penetrating the roof plane to allow light and air in.

Internal walls are either formed by the cedar volumes, or are simple white planes that internally separate private spaces, such as the bedrooms.

Sense of openness

Along the northeast elevation, and the two end walls, everything is glass – floor to ceiling glazing that maximises the view and the sense of openness.

Both the red brick and the cedar carry through these interior/exterior glass boundaries of the house, erasing the differences between inside and outside.

Directly in front of and parallel to the northeast elevation is a swimming pool, fenced with glass so as not to interrupt the stunning views out to the ocean.

The cantilevered eaves allow all day sun in winter and shade the interior during summer.

The house is a strikingly modern,  balanced and creatively playful response to the site and the brief – a unique combination of working space and escape.