Martinborough House By Parsonson Architects

On approach a rurally influenced corrugated iron wall runs away and turns 90 degrees to contain the arrival space. The main roof glides over this leading into the house. The house sits long and low in this large and multi-layered landscape. The dark corrugated iron walls blend with the dark lines of Macrocarpa shelter planting in the distance. The definition between inside and outside is blurred by the continuity of floors and terraces and the roofs hovering or gliding lightly across the plan.....more

Paetawa House | Pekapeka Beach | Parsonson Architects

This small one bedroom house is located at Pekapeka Beach, a small seaside settlement an hours drive north of Wellington City. It rests on gently undulating dune lands, facing northwest, looking across the road and lower dunes out to the Tasman Sea and Kapiti Island to the west. It is intended for the house to both relate to the horizontality of this landscape and also be at odds with it, as if it had been left there, or washed up. The exterior is composed of a rhythm of painted fibre cement panels. Elements of wall, roof beam, roof layers and brise soleil are expressed separately, with light entering in places in between. There is a sense of horizontal and vertical layering, and metaphorically a sense of dislocation or decomposition of parts, as if a creature or construction had been left high and dry above the tide.....more

Northland House | Wellington, New Zealand | Parsonson Architects

The house sits on a high ridgeline overlooking Wellington Harbour with orientation in two directions, east to the harbour and hills beyond and west to the afternoon sun. From the road the house peers austerely over the protective courtyard wall, while the inside spaces feel very open and connected to the outside. We were interested in the idea of floating above a landscape, which represented to us a sense of freedom, lightness and appropriateness to this location. Patterns of surface materials are loosely influenced by the tapestry of land viewed from the sky. Some in shifting layers with non-parallel surfaces subtly distorting perspectives. Flooring and decking change in material and texture as they run level from the west courtyard, through the living room and out to the west deck. The roof glides over, unimpeded, like a shadow, perforated at the edges with louvres. Large solid and glazed doors slide to open or close the spaces. The wings of the plan focus the views either east or west and close off the house to the neighbours to the north and south.....more

Salamanca House | New Zealand | Parsonson Architects

Architect's statement on the house:

The house site was subdivided from the original property which contained an existing house designed and lived in by the Government Architect John Campbell in the early 1900’s. It is historically listed and we were therefore keen for the new house to be lower and more subservient in its appearance to the original house while at the same time relating to it formally.
There were many restrictions on the property. The site was tight and relatively steep, the combined properties could not exceed the 50% inner residential site coverage and the new house was required to fit within all sunlight recession planes.
The resultant dwelling fully utilizes its site. Space for the bedrooms and garaging was excavated below, forming a base to the lighter living spaces above. The roof is clad in zinc and is cut and folded cleanly to focus views out to the harbour and diagonally to the trees, while at the same time providing a sense of enclosure and privacy.

More of the house here