2019 Auckland Architecture Awards Winner
To keep you home, to keep you safe
At first blush, Eva Nash’s home for her own family looks like a simple symmetrical two-storey box with gently pitched roof. But it’s steel, not wood, and the simplicity is deceptive: on closer inspection the apex is asymmetrically aligned and there’s a subtle kink in the wall that brings one side further towards you. This house offers, wherever you look, a little more than you were expecting. The front path is a bridge over a sunken garden moat. The L-shape of the structure encloses a big lawn with 100-year-old pōhutukawa but there is also a barbecue area carved out towards the middle of the L, setting up a more complex interplay of inside and out. Steel-framed glass walls slide away, further expanding the possibilities of the spaces. From the kitchen you can keep an eye on most things happening in and outside the house at ground level, but there is also a great sense of walled-garden privacy. The floor is ground and polished concrete, the powder room off the vestibule is bright green, the bedrooms upstairs are surprisingly spacious, and the main living area feels both family-functional and pleasingly sophisticated. You could live a very good family life in this home.
- Practice
- Rogan Nash Architects Limited
- Category
- Housing
- Location
- Auckland
