Tokatea
Coromandel Pennisular, New Zealand
This project is principally concerned with connecting the interior space of the house with its immediate environment and beyond to the wider landscape. The steeply sloping site has been ‘benched’ to create a series of platforms cascading down the hill, which ultimately form the living, dining and sleeping areas of the house. To the bare earth, a concrete ‘ground’ has been added, augmenting the natural landscape with an artificial one that mimics the contours of the site to create both flat and sloping surfaces for inhabitation.
Overhead a roof-scape, functioning both as a roof and inhabitable landscape, shelters the interior spaces of the house beneath its flowing form, establishing the interior as a series of spaces cascading down the hill. In between, the internal spaces are enclosed by large sliding glass doors and louvres, creating a mutable, fluid-like space that allows varying levels of connection to the surrounding landscape.
Status: completed, 2006
Budget: withheld at client request
Designer: Amanda Yates
Design Consultancy: Stephen Bonnington
Architect: Archiscape
Awards:
Silver: Best Awards 2010, Built Environment
Published:
Green Modern, Eco-conscious Contemporary New Zealand Homes, Penguin Group. McCall, C. (2014).
Architecture in the Space of Flows, London: Routledge. Brott, S. (2011).
Dwell, July/August 2011, Vol. 11, Issue 08.
