Houses revisited: Hau Nui house

Hau Nui Home‘s easy elongated shed type belies Tennent + Brown Architects’ expertise for actually understanding the context of a undertaking, on this occasion: an space filled with significantly horrid housing. To have put in a glamourous home into this aesthetically challenged suburb on the japanese hills of the Tawa Valley would have been, frankly, a crude show of ‘take a look at me, aren’t I so significantly better than you!’

As an alternative, Hau Nui is actually a easy but elegant rural shed. Architect Hugh Tennent describes the idea for this elongated type as “a wind bar that stretches out to seize as a lot solar as attainable in response to its uncovered windswept web site”. Concise north- and south-facing decks are carved into the shape – for advert hoc use on Wellington’s occasional nonetheless and sunny days – and with views out to Porirua Harbour on the southern facet. A ‘string of rooms’ extends throughout this slender pavilion, permitting mild to penetrate by way of from north to south and drawing the exterior setting indoors. A sheltered winter backyard within the centre of the constructing additionally connects the within with the skin and doubles up as an entrance foyer; Tennent calls this space the “hey/goodbye, sunny-and-warm second in the midst of the constructing”.

The format is designed to cater for a feminine proprietor and her canine, with the central focus round a versatile house for each sole use and entertaining visitors, with house for an artwork assortment. A revolving wall divides the eating and dwelling space to make sure the house is cosy for the proprietor when she is alone in the home however which strikes to the facet as required, opening up the house for visitors and creating an artwork gallery and walkway alongside the southern facet. Behind the kitchen is a separate meals preparation room, making certain kitchen litter is refrained from the eating space when it’s in entertaining mode.

The central dwelling space and the winter backyard create a division between the 2 bedrooms, which every occupy an finish of the pavilion. The master suite and ensuite sit to the west, adjoining to a slim but light-filled research whereas, on the japanese finish, a visitor bed room opens out onto the north-facing deck. Subsequent door, a plywood-lined inner storage, full with a vertical inexperienced wall, has potential as a 3rd bed room sooner or later. Two panels of polycarbonate within the roof pull in mild and break up the lengthy, expansive roof externally.

Wooden enlivens each house inside the inside, creating “a heat and anchoring expertise up on the hill,” says Tennent. Eucalyptus flooring and macrocarpa veneer joinery are seen all through, and a run of macrocarpa columns contained in the glazing support in populating the house and divide the big expanses of glass.

Externally, the glazing is additional damaged up by an insert and entrance entrance into the winter backyard, each in wooden, whereas the outside type is clad in ironsand-coloured metal and nods to New Zealand’s
rural architectural historical past: to what architect and broadcaster David Mitchell described as “the elegant shed” within the 1984 documentary of the identical identify.

In accordance with Wikipedia, “elegant issues exhibit refined grace and dignified propriety” and Hau Nui shows this attribute artfully, whereas asking a query: ‘how would you make a shed residence?’ This elegant shed is most actually a house, even with out the frills or folly; planning, house, mild and context are all rigorously thought-about, together with the small print. There may be actually no place for white plastic guttering right here.

Hau Nui celebrates this nation’s distinctive rural method to constructing on the panorama; right here’s hoping that any new housing within the space sees it as inspiration.

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Be aware: These are tales from our archives and, for the reason that time of writing, some particulars might have modified together with names, personnel of particular corporations, registration standing, and so on.