To listen to Jeremy Taylor's playlist inspired by this house, click here. About 10 years ago, Finn Scott, a director at Bossley Architects, bought a couple of old state houses from a home-relocation company. He and his partner were building their family home, and the plan was to shift the 1960s duo onto their site on Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s west coast, connecting them with a modern link. As the architect worked through the creative upcycling process, he got chatting with the company’s owner. “The guy said, ‘One day I’m going to get you to come and design me a house,’” remembers Scott. Roughly a decade on, this lakeside bach is that promise made good.
The owner had a great site that backed into the bush on the edge of a quiet Lake Taupō village. “He wanted a Kiwi bach,” remembers Scott. “His sons and the wider family are scattered across the North Island, so it had to be a nice, central base for everyone to meet.” After initial conversations, the plan became a two-parter. First, they would build a sleepout for kids and overflow, followed by the main, two-storey home with views out to the lake and back over the bush. But at some point along the way, the family realised the “sleepout” had everything they needed, and the three-bedroom building was promoted to bach proper.
An abandoned concept had already taken care of much of the clearing and earthworks, which, considering the remote location (over an hour from Taupō), was an early win for the project. The site tapers off like a triangle into the bush, so the sleepout was tucked against the hillside boundary to make room for the soon-to-be-sidelined house. The building expands with the lay of the land, opening out to a wide, north-orientated face. With its low, flat profile, curved internal wall, grey aluminium eyebrow, living roof and animated light stalks, the house is a curious, sculptural piece of architecture – but the experience is pure bach.
The three bedrooms (main, guest and bunks) are cocooned at the back of the home, allocating the living, kitchen and dining areas to the sun-drenched front. Appropriately, most of the family’s time here is spent outdoors, so the façade’s glazed sliders bank together, allowing free flow out to the typically versatile front lawn/cricket pitch/boat park/campground. The kitchen feeds through to the sheltered concrete-block fireplace on the eastern side “where it all happens”, according to Scott. “They live around it, eat around it – I’ve even had photos of them sitting around it in the middle of winter.”
There’s a fitting robustness to the place, which Scott worked on with project architect Rose Wilkins and architectural graduate Dhruti Rathod. It’s sophisticated but not precious, and capable of taking the knocks that come with the havoc of family holidays. Part of that’s down to the hardy materials – polished concrete floors, built-in plywood furniture, corrugate cladding – but sensible design moves also play their part. The curved wall separating the dining and living room, for instance, softens the corner in that high-traffic area while making space for a pleasingly curved shower on the inside.
The family is keen on trout fishing, so the design team folded those memories into the experience and materials, using vertical shiplap cedar and rock reminiscent of a rustic wooden fishing hut. “We wanted it to have that warmth, cosiness and familiarity, to trigger some of those childhood memories,” says Scott.
Undoubtedly, the building’s identity is cemented on the roof. A walking track weaves through the bush behind the property, looking down onto the home. “We treated that view as the fifth elevation,” explains Scott. The architect brought the idea of a living roof to the table early on, but he had to fight for it. More commonly incorporated into commercial buildings, they’re relatively rare in a residential setting, although Bossley Architects have enthusiastically employed them in many projects. A rooftop garden delivers significant environmental, aesthetic and acoustic benefits. Here, it also simplifies the roof profile. The sloping pitch directs any rainwater not absorbed by the planting to a rear external gutter, avoiding the complexities of internal gutters and downpipes. “You can make ‘simple’ work pretty hard,” Scott says sagely.
The profile is relatively shallow, so the plants were grown off-site then transplanted onto the roof. With its textural mix of tussocks, flax and grasses, the planted surface softens the boundary between the building and nature, allowing the home to dissolve back into the bush. Sprouting up through that tufted greenery are the aptly named “light stalks”, a Bossley Architects innovation. Glazed across the top and down one side, the staunch skylight substitutes are positioned to serve the darker corners of the home. They impart massive personality on the place, funnelling light in during the day and out at night, glowing with a slightly unexpected purple hue that’s sure to confuse any unsuspecting passersby. “The colour was one of those things that you say as a bit of a joke suggestion, and the next minute, there it is,” says Scott. “I quite enjoy it.”
The project was a Covid baby, plagued by the familiar challenges of material shortages, price increases, delays and travel bans, plus a new contractor Bossley Architects had never worked with before. “We visited the site four days before lockdown, so we were really lucky to get a feel for the place before going away and getting on with it. But the whole design process was based on that site visit,” Scott says. “Seeing what you can make with a good group of people in a remote spot when you’re up against it is pretty rewarding.”
Maybe one day the family will outgrow the three-bedroom bach and revisit the idea of building the main home, but the warm retreat is everything they need right now. It encourages togetherness, a slower pace and a return to the kind of holiday that’s spent barefoot and barbecuing. “In any project, plans change and you just go with it,” says Scott. “Here, that meant sorting out the difference between what you need and what you think you need. They do say less is more.”
1. Living
2. Bedroom
3. Ensuite
4. Bunkroom
5. Bathroom
6. Kitchen
7. Dining
8. Terrace
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