Waiheke House | Cheshire Architects

Lightness and solidity, exposure and retreat. On the easternmost reaches of Waiheke Island, a house occupies the crest of a ridgeline - permanence in an otherwise shifting landscape.

Our clients found us because of two small, charred timber cabins we had built on a hillside. They sought a refuge from their city lives; a place in which to pause and dwell. On a small existing clearing, in an elevated position and surrounded by native bush, we found a natural resting place for their new home. Here the clients had camped and picnicked for a decade, where they had cultivated a close relationship with the lawn, the vines below it, the gulf and its islands beyond. Together we have crafted a home which is a celebration of simple human ritual and sensory experience.

The home rises out of the western lawn by means of a serpentine-like stone wall, its northern face turned towards the sun. From this wall emerges a sleeping wing, land-facing and rock-formed. A north- and sea-facing glass pavilion is its counter - a sunshade propped up at the mouth of a cave.