Paekākāriki beach house

A long, low beach house lifted clear of the sand on slender columns, with a continuous glazed face to the water and a solid black flank against the weather.

Project: Practice project at Geoff Fletcher Architects
My role: Design collaborator; presentation model
Period: 2021

The house featured on Grand Designs New Zealand.

The completed beach house at dusk, its long glazed elevation lit warmly from within, the black-clad volume raised on slender posts above a bed of driftwood. — The completed house at dusk. Photograph by Jeff Brass.

The house is long and low, lifted clear of the sand on slender columns, with a continuous glazed face beneath a flat roof plane. The living spaces run the length of that face so the beach is present from everywhere inside. On the sheltered side the building turns solid and black against the weather, opening only where it needs to.

A model was the most direct way to hold that proportion in one view, so it was built large enough to read across a table rather than in the hand. Printing at that size meant designing it to be made in parts: sectioning each piece so it would print cleanly and register against its neighbours, then assembling and finishing the whole. The columns were the constraint. They had to stay as fine as the design implied while still carrying the roof and floor plates.

I contributed to the design as a collaborator within the practice, and designed, printed and assembled the presentation model.

Process

Design development
Presentation model design and production

Outputs: Developed design
Large-format 3D printed presentation model
Delivered building
Tools: Rhino · 3D printing

Large white 3D printed architectural model of the house raised on slender columns, photographed on a timber desk in an office with afternoon light behind it. — The presentation model in the office, lit from the window behind.

Living space behind full-height glazing looking out to the sea and a distant island, with a carved timber pendant light suspended from the ceiling. — The glazed face to the beach. Photograph by Jeff Brass.

Timber deck beside the black-clad exterior of the house, with a long horizontal window and the beach and sea beyond. — The deck and the black cladding at the sheltered end. Photograph by Jeff Brass.

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