Straight out of architecture school I was working for a firm that was very good at teaching the business of being an architect but, in my case, my first commission came from my parents.
We moved to Auckland from Wellington in 1986 and housing being what it is, we couldn’t afford to buy. Mum and Dad had always wanted a bach and had been working on the guy who owned this section for years. Every Christmas they’d pop around with a six-pack of Double Brown and try and woo him into selling the section – he had about six around the area. He finally agreed.
I quit my job and spent a year working out how to design something that I was into – the things you don’t necessarily learn about at architecture school, and that I wasn’t learning in my job.
It was a voyage of discovery. In the 90s, I was into modernist American architecture, specifically the Case Study houses and Rudolph Schindler, and his modernist work in California just prior to the Case Study programme kicking off. He came up with the Schindler truss system, which I basically stole and modified for Waiheke. His system has a beam that runs through at door height and then a flat roof with a clerestory on the open side. However, I used a pitched roof because it rains a lot more here than it does in California.
Probably the most difficult thing was working with Mum and Dad – the best and worst clients. They kind of let you do what you like and they don’t let you do what you like. They were living in Japan at the time and I met them in China for a holiday. I lugged over a plywood model of the house, which weighed about 50kg, to walk them through the design.
It was conceptualised as a one-bedroom bach that could expand to accommodate more people. The space at the front with the view has a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living and dining. Then you walk outside to two bedrooms at the back.
Dad always wanted a tower for his telescope – this one is concrete and places ablutions and a bunkroom on the bottom floor, a sleeping space in the middle and on top is a parapetted roof deck with a great view. It’s totally private up there and great for star watching because it blocks out the surrounding light. Concept wise, the tower was really important – it’s the vertical element with three pavilions that spin around it. There are three strong L-shaped walls that define and contain distinct spaces – the living; the main bedroom; and the guest bedroom.
Looking back I was quite into the idea of the New Zealand vernacular, what it was and how it worked. So I guess it was my take on what the vernacular could be. There were a lot of conversations going on back then about New Zealand style and architecture. You had the woolshed idea, there seemed to be some steep-pitched roof action with John Scott and Sir Miles Warren, and the monopitch roof, which resonated with me as a good form for New Zealand and our environment. The roof at the bach is designed to look like it hinges up from the gutter side, conceptualised as being propped open to create the monopitch and get the light running through it at clerestory level.
It was designed as the family bach, although it’s just me and Dad now. Dad goes over there, my wife and I and kids go over and friends use the place – it has a fairly casual vibe.
Waiheke is sort of my spiritual Auckland home. I love the bach, and there’s nothing I’d change.
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