Habitus #30_RTA Studio

TexT AndreA STevenS | PhoTogrAPhy PATrick reynoldS

Auckland architect RichaRd Naish has made designing for context

an art, fashioning urban projects and, here, his family home. aNdRea steveNs visits the E-Type House to find a house fit for the city.

Triple treat

3. on location # 129issue #30 habitusliving.com

Auckland’s Grey Lynn is a city-fringe suburb dominated by 100-year-old timber villas. Their soft paint colours, simple box forms and decorative fretwork set a uniform

character, maintained by council heritage rules. When local residents Rich Naish and Andrea Hotere bought a vacant lot overlooking Grey Lynn Park, they knew there would be a lot of interest in the design. But far from building something alien, they’ve gone for understatement and deference to the scale and proportion of the street.

Naish is an architect and director of RTA Studio, a boutique architectural practice well- known in the area for its work on heritage commercial buildings. Over the years, he has developed a unique design language, translating and combining old with new, often contrasting a bold material aesthetic with the existing Victorian and Edwardian buildings.

With the opportunity of a bare residential site within the heritage area – a suburb he and his wife have lived in for 20 years – Naish naturally opted to design a house that worked within its context. It would be a house of its time, but also a house of its place – cognisant of the existing architectural grain.

Buildings of the Victorian and Edwardian era have a fine scale due to the technology of the day. In New Zealand this was based on the maximum span of a timber beam, four to five metres or so. By respecting this scale, the architect has designed the new house to sit comfortably within the streetscape and

previous | TriAngulAr roofs mAkE A livEly profilE in A nEigHbourHood of convEnTionAl HippEd roofs. Above | THE lowEr of THE Two courTyArds connEcTs THE EnTry corridor wiTH THE dining And living room. pAinTings cEnTrE And lEfT ArE by rAlpH HoTErE, AndrEA's fATHEr. THE rigHT HAnd pAinTing is by dEliA woodHAm.

issue #30 habitusliving.com 3. on location # 131

opposite | THE viEw wEsT Across THE dining room looks onTo THE lowEr courTyArd And THE living room bEyond. Above | THE corridor spinE AT 35 mETrEs long is A dynAmic spAcE sEpArATing And connEcTing rooms. pAinTings from lEfT: rAlpH HoTErE, dEliA woodHAm. russEl mosEs rosAry AgAinsT cEdAr.

on the wider hillside. So, while its design and materials are very contemporary, its form and size are sympathetic.

The 290-square-metre house is made of three discrete two-storey volumes – like small living towers. These simple box forms have a square plan with a steeply-pitched roof. It is as though a villa, with its pyramid roof, has been cut into pieces, with three of the quadrants then stacked up the site. Thus the closed, protected form of the villa has been turned inside out for more open and outward facing rooms. Each tower faces north-east, making the most of the sun and park view afforded by the site’s slope and orientation. The overall effect is a house of small parts that uses its site intensively, while retaining the villa scale.

To tie the three parts of the house together, a 35-metre-long corridor steps along and up almost the full length of the site along the southern boundary. Modelled as an indoor street, its concrete block wall and skylight create a wall for art, and robust finishes that take the knocks of a growing family. The corridor grants access into each tower and to two garden rooms and courtyards in the spaces between.

issue #30 habitusliving.com 3. on location # 133

Wrapped in cedar, the towers read as discrete and separate elements inside as well as out. They connect visually and spatially with each other across the sunny courtyards, but from the corridor they seem private and are reached via small stairways and doors. The indoor garden rooms – hung with potted plants like a conservatory – act as informal common spaces, like rest points or ante rooms off the long, stepping corridor. In plan, this layout makes a capital E, which is where it gets its name – the E-Type House.

The site can be seen as a series of interlinked platforms, indoors and out. At street level, the garage takes up the ground floor of the first tower with the kitchen/dining above. The dining links across the first courtyard to the living room in the second tower, which has the main bedroom and ensuite above that. In turn, the main bedroom links across the second courtyard to the third tower, which has four bedrooms – two below and two above, one a guest bedroom with study. And finally, the second floor of the third tower links with a small garden at the very top of the site. The house and garden literally step up the hill.

previous | dEspiTE bEing A modErn HousE in form And mATEriAl, iT siTs comforTAbly wiTHin iTs HEriTAgE nEigHbourHood. Above | blAck porcElAin brick TilEs, rEcyclEd TimbEr, rAw sTEEl And cEdAr mAkE A rEmArkAblE cAvE-likE kiTcHEn. pAinTings AT rigHT by rAlpH HoTErE. beLoW | THE uppEr gArdEn room is AdjAcEnT To THE kids wing And conTAins A piAno in onE cornEr. THE pAinTing is by AndrEA's fATHEr rAlpH HoTErE. opposite | THE EnsuiTE is Top-liT And clAssic wHiTE brick TilEs bouncE ligHT down inTo THE windowlEss room.


6

2

8

80

w w

w

w

w

Long Section

ENTRY

GAR AGE

HALLWAY

LAUNDRY

DINING

KITCHEN

GARDEN ROOM

STOR AGE

1

2

3

4

9

0

q

e

BATHROOM

LIVING

GARDEN

COURTYARD

5

6

7

8

BEDROOM

POOL

ENSUITE

w

r

t

8

3e

q

w w w

r

t

LeveL 3

1

2

3

LeveL 1

6 9

3

7

45

8

q

0

LeveL 2

w w

LeveL 4


Due to the small footprints of each tower – they each measure six-by-six metres – sun and light filter into every room, and each has views outside to the courtyards, terraced northern garden or Grey Lynn Park across the road. Bedrooms feel private and detached, accessed as they are by small stairwells off the indoor street. Like a timber castle with hidden doors, small niches and secret rooms, the house feels like an adventure.

While the bedrooms are tucked away and located the furthest from the front door, the kitchen and dining are closest to the street. This combined room is entirely lined in cedar with a raw steel kitchen, firebox, large dining table and window seat. It’s a warm, social, family space, and with the park opposite, it can also become a vibrant room that is well-connected to its city-fringe suburb.

From the dining room, three steps link down to a courtyard and across to the lounge. The lounge is really snug with a wall of floating steel bookshelves and bespoke steel pendant lights. Together with cowhides, sheepskins and black leather couches, the interior design fits with the robust architecture, further layering natural textures and materials.

Like a timber castle with hidden doors, small niches and secret rooms, the house

feels like an adventure.

opposite | THis smAll courTyArd is TuckEd AwAy off THE loungE wiTH A brAziEr And sEATing on A sofT Hoggin surfAcE. Above | A viEw inTo THE loungE AT nigHT.


The couple have avoided the ubiquitous open-plan kitchen/dining/living for a more idiosyncratic spatial experience. As the seasons change, the experience of the house changes – the courtyards act as extra rooms in the summer’s heat, and then, in winter, the house is more closed down and inward.

There is a real sense of the city inside the house. The character of the common spaces – the indoor street with its concrete and cedar, and the garden rooms with their hanging plants – don’t feel like typical residential spaces. They feel more like a covered laneway before you enter the house itself, like some of the spaces you find in Naish’s commercial designs. This aspect makes the rooms within each tower feel quite separated, as though you have moved through several layers to reach them.

With all the concrete, cedar and raw steel, the character is rustic and industrial, unpretentious and fit for a busy family life. But despite its robust finishes, it has a delicate scale with many nooks and crannies making for a fun, private and adaptable home.

Above | A plungE pool fiTs bETwEEn THE boundAry wAll And THE cHildrEn's bEdroom wing.

drop box

ArcHiTEcT RTA StudiodEsign dirEcTor Richard NaishprojEcT ArcHiTEcT Tim SargissonsTrucTurAl/civil consulTAnTHarris Foster ConsultingconTrAcTor Peter Kirkbride

RTA STudio(64) 9360 3313rtastudio.co.nz

furniTurEDining table from Simon James. Dining

chair are Eames. Florence Knoll sofa and various retro chairs.

finisHEsColorsteel roof. Tiles from Artedomus.

ligHTingCustom designed from RTA Studio.

fixEd & fiTTEdFisher & Paykel appliances. Sanitaryware from Fowler. APL Metro series joinery, installed by Alitech. Hewi hardware supplied by Sopers.

issue #30 habitusliving.com

Habitus #30_RTA Studio

Documents

Transcript of Habitus #30_RTA Studio