The site is an elevated promontory above a rocky cove at the western entrance to a double bay on Waiheke Island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf. The site slopes north-east toward a reef and sandy beaches opposite.The house is a collaboration with the Client, an engineer with meticulous attention to detail, who owns a winery on the island. His sensibility for materials is directed by his Cypriot heritage and the sensory experiences founded in his Mediterranean culture.
His brief was a single line instruction to enhance the experience of the occupants. As a structural engineer he has an affinity with concrete and in situ concrete was defined as the core material for the structure. The Client sourced travertine, remembered from his childhood that matched the colour of the beaches across the bay and the clay-coloured sandstone of nearby island cliffs. The curved concrete forms resonate with the early 20th century gun emplacements that dot the margins of the Hauraki Gulf.