KEY POINTS:
Sue and Roger Wall's award-winning Auckland house was devised to be like a nest but with a woven-fronted facade in a nod to Maori ornamentation and design.
"We're hidden but we're able to look out at everybody else," said Sue Wall from the inner-city home.
Architect Andrew Patterson won a northern regional award from the Institute of Architects for the two-bedroom house in Ponsonby.
Patterson said the house was designed to be like a secret retreat.
"This house has been conceived as a nest or maimai. A maimai is a nest-like structure, a place to hide and watch birds," he wrote in a brief.
"On a tight suburban site, the house sits perched on a hillside opening out to the east. Its living area forms a viewing perch, a raised platform fully surrounded by glass, a place to observe the city.
"Below the perch is a protected nesting place with two bedrooms and a cinema room. As a maimai, the house is camouflaged from the street, offering back to the city an ornately formed screen reminiscent of overlapping feathers or woven reeds. The proportioning for the front facade has been taken from the villa previously on the site," Patterson wrote.
Panels of the front facade open to allow entry into the house and garage. A vertical car stacker system is used to conserve space. "There are pockets of open space in the house including a courtyard concealed behind the facade, like a nest the house isn't sealed shut. It is formed from spaces which open and close as you move through it."
In September last year, Patterson mentioned the house at a University of Auckland lecture, saying the challenge was to create a sense of place for the Walls.
"The building's front facade uses a version of the traditional Maori carved facade to honour its occupants. It's a camouflage using a simple pattern of feathers. The interior is laid out like a hunting hide around a large glass living space overlooking the city," Patterson said.
The Walls, who moved into the house 14 months ago, said they were delighted because the house was so beautiful and Patterson deserved to win for the flair of his design.
"It's a fantastic house," Roger Wall said. "It was built as an apartment. It was going to be built as a one-bedroom house - there were two concepts we looked at. It has fantastic volumes."
The institute's judging panel headed by Richard Naish of RTA Studio praised the Walls for being courageous and allowing the architect full expression. The house was a clever experiment in inner-city living, the judges said.
The judges made 13 awards to buildings in the northern region, including Auckland.
Naish praised the high number of entries and the general standard of award winners.
"What was particularly good was to see the high standards of New Zealand architecture present right across the different categories from commercial to cultural," he said.
Included in these were a Waiheke Island house and an Auckland restaurant. Stevens Lawson Architects won a regional award for an Onetangi house which the judges said was impeccably sited, wedded to a mature pohutakawa tree and a sweeping beach.
The house perfectly punctuated the beach edge and its plan was ingenious and intimate. Internal and external spaces borrowed from each other to give an intriguing, informal and easy style of living, the judges found.
Fearon Hay Architects won an award for the Clooney restaurant in Sale St, which the judges said was a great space.
The restaurant was in an existing concrete and steel building which had been stripped bare. Then, a sophisticated exploration of space and materials had been undertaken, they said.
The building was left to show its origins clearly. A strong palette of materials had been added to complete the restaurant and bar.
Materials used were oiled basalt, blackened oak and steel, leather and blown glass.
"These elements complement, not conceal, the given space and materials. The dining space is further subdivided by heavy curtains and a contrasting tracery of full height veils of black vertical filaments, adding a delicacy, intimacy and mystery within a rich interior," the judges said.
BUILDING PRIZES
* Awards made by New Zealand Institute of Architects.
* Regional award winners announced last week.
* National awards to be announced May 24.
