Architectus : : Clifford-Forsyth House

Location - Auckland, New Zealand
Floor area - 250m2
Completed - 1995
Awards - NZIA Resene National Award for Architecture 1997, Levene / Home & Building House of the Year

The design concept began with an investigation of the relationship between a light wooden frame and solid retaining block walls, and an ideal of creating the spirit of a boathouse, a place to retreat to, almost a holiday house within the city.

The primary elements of construction, frame and walls, sit on a concrete base, while a folded plate roof, underlined with plywood, tops the whole.

Block-work elements which began life as a core (enclosing some functions or forming a hearth) are separated, interacting with the frame to divide the space; cupping each end of a 'servant' zone (on the angle of the roof's fold) and compressing the middle of a ‘served' zone.

Approached from the street above, the house addresses the public edge with an expressed colonnade and glazed screen stretched between block walls - inclined warmly and welcomingly to the visitor.