Ōruawharo Bay Bach, Aotea Great Barrier, 2008
When we came to design this house, we thought we had some answers to the questions of bach living; after all, we had tested ideas on our own place. This was the first time, though, that we explored for a client the notion of a building made of small pieces, of providing less, not more. The client understands Aotea: it’s not easy to get to the island, and building there is even harder. If you’re up for that challenge, you’re already in our camp.
The building has two parts, a horizontal pavilion and a tower, with an outside area in between. This was our original use of what was to become a consistent element of our beach architecture: the lanai, a roofed space accommodating a dining table and fire. The lanai is the heart of the bach; the structures surrounding it are there essentially to define its edges.
We had come from a continental country with stable weather but in New Zealand we quickly understood that coastal buildings require layers of defence. At Ōruawharo Bay, much of our thinking was around how the bach could reverse itself to handle both El Niño winds from the south and west and La Niña winds from the northeast. Accordingly, the building has two decks and the kitchen relates to both equally well.
The relationship of the kitchen to the lanai is enabled by the solid spine of a gabion wall — stones encaged in steel mesh — that binds the bach’s loose collection of forms together. This gabion wall was a lesson in what weight does as a holding element and, like the lanai, it has been a recuring element in our beach houses.
In South Africa, you can do without a waterproof covering over an outside space, but not in New Zealand. So, how to make a covering not feel like a roof? Glass-fibre sheets, with battens underneath, admit light, and under this protection you still feel you’re outside. It’s important that the outdoor spaces of a bach don’t take on the character of badly appointed inside spaces. A deck should be distinct from the interior floor — its timber should be rougher, its planks not so perfectly planed. If a breeze comes up through the deck, then roll out a carpet (as we do at our own bach).
