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