Herbst architects has designed a property commissioned by a client who had acquired a plot that was previously a market garden. Located in Waimauku in Auckland, part of the rural site is planted with vineyards and also features a barn and dressage area. With the different functions located all within one site, ‘Bramasole’ needed a reorganization to bring the entire property together as a whole.
Order was introduced by Herbst Architect‘s use of landscaping and material.Bi-axial landscaping elements such as gabion baskets were employed to divide the site into quadrants.The lower walls were planned to mark the entry points, whereas the higher walls form the perimeter to the house. The property features three pavilions accommodating the open-sided veranda, the garage and the bedrooms which are articulated as simple box forms with weathered timber planked skins referencing agrarian crates. Meanwhile, the areas in-between these spaces feature the living room pavilion.
A floating roof tops the living room and tips it towards southern light and views of the tree top foliage. This expansive canopy gives the building a scale appropriate to the scale of the land. The living pavilion extends west to form a terrace and east to trap a sheltered courtyard with tree and water feature, all of which giving a seemingly floating illusion to the whole property.
