Page 3

For all of our love affair with urban living in recent years, there have been few stand-alone houses that embrace a truly intimate relationship with street life. A history of hiding houses away behind fences and gardens may have something to do with that. Urbanity has seeped into suburbs close to our city centres. But unlike in Australia, where inner-city streets are lined with renovated terraced houses, there are few local examples of homes that push right up to the pavement edge. This house in central Ponsonby is, therefore, rare in making a virtue of its public context, while creating a calming oasis within a courtyard plan fashioned from a modest west-facing backyard.

The 490-square-metre site is in a heritage zone and, as a 1913 newspaper advertisement for an on-site auction noted, it sits just ‘a quarter-minute’ from bustling Ponsonby Road. When the owner approached architect Guy Tarrant, a single dwelling had been formed from a pair of Edwardian townhouses joined by a brick party wall. The biggest challenge was an imposing concrete-block church dominating its northern boundary, although the backyard offered access to afternoon sun as well as a surprisingly verdant outlook into lush neighbouring gardens.

Working in Tarrant’s favour was an entrance on the northern side of the house-where it would once have provided access to the north-facing townhouse and a street facade that retained its elegant proportions. The neighbouring church, though charmless, presented a blank face.

Rooms inside the existing house have been reworked in such a way as to retain external openings in their original position, including matching pairs of French doors opening to the street on both levels. These provide a memory of the way the two houses were originally organised, while the once-concealed brick party wall was painstakingly taken apart and reinstated in its former position.

At the rear, a new extension forms an L-shaped plan that encloses a pool and outdoor terrace. Tarrant has taken the opportunity to continue an exploration of the courtyard form as a response to compressed urban sites with little prospect. The ever-changing light and reflections from the pool soften the outlook and provide a calming focus. A level change between the original house and addition is cleverly handled with generous terracing

Page 5

outside, and stairs inside where the old house and new extension meet. The contemporary language and linear form of the addition provides a strong contrast to that of the two-level townhouse, intensifying the experience of both.

The original street facade has been largely rebuilt as it was; during construction, a hole was cut through the middle of the house to enable digger access to the rear yard. With balconies and joinery reinstated, and a strengthened but non-functioning brick chimney, it now makes a more valuable contribution to the street. The owner, who shares the house on a part-time basis with her adult son and his partner, was content with a cobbled car pad at the front, which echoes the style of parking provided to customers of nearby shops.

Inside, an office and a bedroom with an en suite are located downstairs. The entrance is tucked between the office and a second living room, from which stairs lead to the upstairs level that provides the owner with her own private retreat. Here two bedrooms and bathrooms, and a yoga room span the width of the original house and enjoy the elevated west-facing view to the Waitakere Ranges.

In the newly formed living extension, white-painted walls and timber floors give way to cream brick and tiles, creating a textural contrast between the house’s two zones. The already lofty ceiling height of the older building steps up even further to accommodate a clerestory that floods the space with sun and light while editing views of the immediate neighbours. The floating roof is discreetly supported on a series of steel posts. The cedar-clad ceiling further signals the transition to new, instead of attempting to maintain a consistent language throughout.

Tarrant has adopted a favourite device, a plant moat, to eliminate the need for intrusive pool fencing around the indoor and outdoor living areas. A window seat opposite the kitchen hovers above the sunken planter, and with bi-folding steel windows drawn back creates a seamless view across the pool’s surface. The pool has been raised slightly to enhance this intimate connection, which is most pronounced in the rear living room. Here, louvred windows and elegant powder-coated aluminium screens are literally suspended over the water’s surface. The effect is of being inside a room floating on the pool.

Page 7

The house was to be a centre for family life in Auckland and needed to flex to comfortably accommodate a crowd or a few. The generous kitchen-dining space, with its built-in bench seating, allows several groups to gather-around the dining table, at the kitchen island, overlooking the pool-while others can spill out to the dining terrace or lounge post-swim with their backs warmed by the bricks lining the northern wall. There is even a small patch of lawn retained at the rear of the site for dogs to play.

At 275 square metres, this is not an overly large house. But with careful planning and clever reuse of the existing house and its site, Tarrant has created a generous multi-generational living environment that embraces its public location while offering a calming sanctuary amid the bustle of city life.

Reference to the book
Architecture at Home – Houses for New Zealanders to live, work and play
By author Debra Millar