Showhomes > DesignHaus at the beach

DesignHaus at the beach

Conceived by designHaus as a showcase for today's leading building products, and designed by David Ponting Architecture, this stunning beach house is clad in a combination of James Hardie Linea® Weatherboard and Titan® Facade Panel, a combination that is becoming increasingly popular particularly in coastal situations.

The house, built by Apex Construction is a great example of innovative contemporary New Zealand coastal architecture. Yet its foundations are firmly grounded in the vernacular of the traditional Kiwi bach.

Architect, David Ponting wanted to create something that echoed the evolutionary process of the traditional kiwi bach, typically built in stages using a variety of materials. At the same time it had to be very, very modern, and most importantly, maintenance free.

The house design began with the concept of a garage on an otherwise bare site. This refers back to the traditional fibrolite garage, which would often be the first building constructed on site, and which would suffice until the weatherboard bach was constructed.

The ‘garage' in this 2003 version of ‘the bach' was clad in James Hardie's Titan Facade Panel. An extremely versatile medium density fibre cement product, Titan is a long way removed from traditional grey fibrolite, but it certainly delivers the same low-maintenance inert qualities that made fibrolite a popular choice in coastal situations.

Here, the Titan Panel was cut into small sheets and express-jointed to create a grid pattern. This same treatment has been used on the garage door to create a seamless flow between the wall and door which makes the door all but disappear.

Traditionally, the next stage in the organically evolving kiwi bach, was the two storied weatherboard structure. David has rendered this in James Hardie Linea Weatherboard and glass.

Linea weatherboard was chosen for its low maintenance, but also because it still creates the wonderful shadowlines of the traditional kiwi weatherboard bach. The difference is that it's not going to keep you busy sanding and painting when you should be relaxing on holiday.

“Linea just looks 100% better than anything else on the market – and it gets away from cedar, which has been used a lot in coastal architecture, but still presents maintenance issues,” says designHaus.

The third design element in this evolving beach house, was the construction of a massive 26m long concrete wall, which provided total privacy from the street.

Finally, the space between the garage wall and house was filled in, creating an extraordinary sense of bringing the outdoor surfaces inside.

"The Titan on the garage wall became the interior of the bedroom and on the other side, the Linea forms a bedroom wall and the wall of the gallery. There's a real sense of bringing the outdoors inside. Both the Linea and the Titan create gorgeous lines and interest. They really are products that you can use to build anything you like with," says designHaus.

designHaus's next project will be another coastal house, this time designed as a permanent family home, which will also use James Hardie Linea Weatherboard, Titan Facade Panel and Monotek Sheet.

For more information about this project, contact David Ponting Architecture.