A designer creates a fortress-like home in Birkenhead Point, Auckland, for her young family.
Sophie Wylie, Artifact— “I live here with my husband and our three children – a five-year-old, four-year-old and two-and-a-half year old. The kids love to play outside so it was interesting having a really urban home for them – the courtyard works well, with enough surface area for them to play. We also have parks around us, which makes a difference. The kids colonise the sunken living room as their snug and playroom.
It’s quite a big house, with four bedrooms on a small plot of land. There’s a neighbouring commercial building, two houses behind us, and a heritage overlay, so it was a challenge to work with. It’s a constrained site with an efficient build in the sense that it has been extruded into a large, two-storey, walled north-eastern courtyard house. The 260-square-metre floorplan includes the garage, and the 400-square-metre site includes the driveway on a shared lot.
This story is from the April 2019 edition of HOME.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the April 2019 edition of HOME.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
The Past Is Present
In exhibitions at public galleries around the country, artists reflect on our collective, individual and cultural histories.
Why I Walk Carl Douglas
How the experience of walking reveals our world to us and informs our sense of our place in it.
My Favourite Building Chlöe Swarbrick
Built on Auckland’s Karangahape Road in the 1920s, St Kevin’s Arcade has served as vocational inspiration and a meeting place for the Green MP since she was a teenager.
Humble Special
PAC Studio designs a home on a tiny budget in the bush above the Kaipara Harbour.
Modern Love
Assembly Architects draws on lightweight Californian modernism to craftan elegant mountain retreat.
Family Tree
On a leafy site in the Waikato, Tane Cox crafts a subtle home for three generations
LOW PROFILE
Sometimes, strict covenants can be a blessing in disguise.
Fine Line
A house in a vineyard by Stuart Gardyne shows country living need not be rustic.
Elegant Shed
Ben Daly rehabilitates a farm building with a long family history on the Canterbury Plains.
Perfect Pitch
An encampment by an inlet casually inhabits land at Tawharanui.