Bach with view to the Sound Images, NZ Residential Building, Home Design, Property

Bach with view to the Sound in New Zealand

Rural Weekend House in New Zealand – design by Irving Smith Architects

23 Sep 2019

Bach with view to the Sound

Design: Irving Smith Architects

Location: New Zealand

Bach with view to the Sound, NZ

A small retreat style bach, providing holiday, forestry and rentable accommodation in a private forest high above the Pelorus Sounds. On a steep site, with waterway views to the southeast, and an ongoing subdivision to the north, the bach elongates against the contour to generate flat ground and a view to the Sound.

Ground areas gather access and play, and transition to exterior and interior living spaces orientating to the sounds view through a central breezeway and full width ceiling baffles. The baffles collect and articulate light to continually change and inform bach life, much like the moving waterway below.

The view to the Sound remains clear, ever present, with the decking folding to a catcher deck, and the northern outlook cornered away to a snug which looks out above the subdivision to the surrounding hills.

Program follows with seated and private spaces layered off each side of the breezeway providing the corners necessary for an isolated holiday where it simply may rain continually. The oversized eave provides covered verandah edges, shade and the generous weather protection suited to a bach with intermittent use.

Designed and constructed to a very tight budget, cedar battened claddings and linings are selected for their ease of carpentry and maintenance on a remote site, and tinted throughout to the colour of the surrounding clay. Ceiling and baffle surfaces are uniformly finished to articulate the breezeway and movements in light, with timber joinery and battens intermittently applied to warm and soften interior spaces to the view.