An elevated beachfront site inspired Lloyd Hartley Architects to scoop up sand-like materials and craft a playful, cohesive house with impressive detailing and flexibility at its core.
Auckland’s beach town Ōmaha is a horn-shaped sandspit that slashes into the Pacific and onto which suburban houses have been plonked and asked to behave like baches. It doesn’t do ‘roughing it’ very well and if the sea wasn’t there, parts of this little enclave could easily be confused for any of the newer Auckland suburbs that empty and swell with commuters and children during the work week.
The sea, however, is very much an inescapable presence of this particular site. Across the sandspit there is a bird sanctuary and beyond it, Ti Point headland. The swaying fibreglass skins of the anchored boats reflect whatever hue the sun throws at them. “I think there’s something really lovely about that,” says Mike Hartley of Lloyd Hartley Architects, “about the marking of time and the variance that you get across the seasons as well, with the different light reflecting off the water.”
The site is slightly elevated both in relation to the adjacent public walkway that follows the contour of the beach and in relation to its neighbours. This pedestal effect, Mike says, was formed by sand having piled on the site over the years since nearby houses were built.
Instead of excavating down to a certain ‘tabula rasa’, they took that natural mound as its starting point and benefited from the privacy and views that its height afforded it. One of the questions that this raised, however, was how to make the house ‘of the beach.’
“One of the first propositions we presented to the owners was the brick selection,” says Mike, mentioning their wish to emulate the sand around them, as a sort of sand castle playfully sculpted beside the sea. This was accomplished via materiality, colouration, and bricklaying technique.
First, during a visit to Canterbury Clay Bricks the team opted for a product that emulates the flat and long dimensions of the bricks that the ancient Romans used throughout their Empire. The proportion of each of brick line favours horizontality rather than height, and seems to soften the presence of what is essentially, a rather solid volume.
Lloyd Hartley then chose a light, off-white colour version of those bricks with tinges of very pale beige and cream. Both the variation in tone and texture and the small, darker flecks and spots scattered across the surface add to the sand-like appearance of the frontage.
To further enhance the sandy metaphor, the brick was layered in random bond formation, a technique that eschews a rigid pattern, opting instead for a sort of granularity. Offcuts of bricks are interspersed with complete ones, and the rows each offer variety rather than precision.
The surrounds are “made up of fine grains of sand,” says Mike, “so perhaps the bricks could perform in a similar way.” The overall shape of the house seems as if it had been sculpted out of a type of sandy clay.
The double curvature of the high entrance, the ribbon that flows from the façade onto the side stairs — they all have a sinuosity that looks as if it had been carved out from a malleable material.
However the details are intensely thought out (a result, the architect says, of the firm working on this project during a Covid lockdown, giving designers a chance to hunker down on minutia, “because there was very little else to do during that time!” says Mike). The downpipes and gutters have all been carved into the building rather than added as an afterthought.
“It was about making all the functional aspects of the house seem intentional and,” according to Mike, “rather than look at those functional things as a problem, we like to think about them as opportunities to exercise what we’re good at … that is: considering stuff, drawing stuff, seeing alternatives. How can we sculpt out, how can we use that depth of that brick veneer and the cavity behind it to work with the downpipes? It is about breaking down this public façade … and getting some kind of sculpture out of it.”
The curved entrance is about “pushing that door back to give some relief to the elevation and that upper level deck does the same thing, drawing out these other elements.” A change of materiality and colour to the seamlessly flushed garage doors make the upper floor as if raised on a plinth.
In terms of brief, this 380-square-metre house was expected to accommodate anywhere from two to 14 people. The architects segmented and divided the plan both internally and externally, to create pockets of activity and areas that allow for large groups to congregate and smaller areas for privacy and introspection.
Two separate terraces with big cantilevered roofs overlook the sea; their stairs connect to a ground floor, north-facing, protected courtyard. There are two living rooms (upstairs and downstairs), an open plan scullery acts as servery — and suntrap — to another outdoor area.
“Allowing people to be together and apart is quite important,” says the architect, “so there’s a series of little pocket spaces that mean that people don’t just have to go and hide in their bedroom, but they can be out in public, or be tucked around a corner reading their book or upstairs.”
This much choice allows not just for people flows but provides a variety of outlook and communion with the changing coastal winds, sun positions, and overall relation to the sea.
The interiors continue the tonality of the house: a sandy, natural colouration with pops of white and natural stone … it follows that New Zealand beachy resort vocabulary that is relaxed, evocative of nature, yet has the right amount of refinement to elevate the whole thing without losing its approachability.
A lot of this home’s success is also in its curvature. Balustrades, handrails, front door handle, kitchen island, and many other unexpected walls embrace the round rather than the hard-edged. “Curves are everywhere in architecture but they’re making a bit of an Art Deco return,” says Mike, “they’re lovely because their softened edges allowed us to come back to that idea of scooping up sand onto the site and making sand castles.”
This is a friendly beach house, one with a huge number of internal and external offerings all held together by a very clear, singular idea and impeccable detailing.
