Trends New Zealand Volume 33 No 3 | Page 72

Top: Stairs from the entrance lobby lead to the L-shaped living and entertainment level. The shorter arm of the L – seen to the left here – contains the bar and a living area. The material palette here includes concrete and stone also used on the exterior, combined with natural granite tiles and dark oak for joinery and wall cladding. Above: The dining room and kitchen are in the longer arm of the L. The thick walls on either side of the kitchen are pocket walls, allowing the full- height glass doors running along the side to slide back and be completely concealed in the wall. search | save | share at On the street side, the house presents a deliberately blank facade, concealing the indoor and outdoor living areas from public view. “At the same time we dropped the garage level by two metres, which reduced the steepness of the driveway, so as to allow easier access for the owners’ sports cars,” says Rhoda. “The garage doors are made of dark aluminium and this same material is used to clad the whole wall at this level, so the doors effectively disappear from sight.” The steepness of the site also allowed the architects to split the house into three floors – the basement garage level, the living areas and the bedroom wing, which forms the top floor on the long arm of the L. The entrance cube and bedroom level are constructed of raw shuttered concrete, which is softened by the use of a natural stone cladding for the wall between them that shields the living areas. A white, geometrically shaped screen installed on the upper level adds pat- terned textures to the exterior. Like much