A Bold Anchoring – Clifftops House by Bossley Architects

Expressing a grounded connection to its site, Clifftops House challenges the typical material composition and expression of New Zealand architecture and focuses on a more solid, robust approach. As a result, Bossley Architects uncovers a warmth within the predominantly masonry structure, embedding familiar layers into the home for an equally layered multigenerational household.

Not far from the bustle of Auckland, Clifftops House sits within the Waitemata Harbour among other established and equally generous homes. The house was envisioned as more than just a place to provide shelter, but as a gesture of legacy from its owners to current and future generations of their family. The planning is guided by the ability to live collectively and independently at the same time, without altering the feeling of the spaces and how they engage with the landscape. In creating a space for the evolving needs of the family over multiple generations, celebrating a sense of togetherness became the core and driving focus. “Three generations are catered for, with family members returning for long periods of time,” says Project Architect Finn Scott. “The house also offers a variety of scale and comfort as well as accommodating the sense of family life and a stay hold for personal belongings, as well as a very significant art collection.”

The planning is guided by the ability to live collectively and independently at the same time, without altering the feeling of the spaces and how they engage with the landscape.

Accommodating this artwork was a key element of the brief. “The client requested a ‘house with art, rather than a gallery to live in’,” explains Director Pete Bossley, “and our intention was to create spaces that are comfortable, intriguing, emotionally warm and capable of accommodating a person alone, a family group or a party of dozens along with an expansive collection of New Zealand and international art.” Thus, rather than a minimalist, gallery-like environment, the house offers a series of complex spaces of varying proportions and heights, a rich layering of materials and surfaces and ledges for the clients to fill with photos and objets d’art.

In the typical approach seen throughout both the North and South Islands of New Zealand, there is a distinct theme in the use of local and natural materials. Clifftops House subverts and challenges those norms and anticipated reactions to both site and place. “In some ways, the house proposes an alternative to the NZ approach to materiality,” says Pete. “Instead, materials are used in an expressive way to represent the sense of longevity and permanence, rather than sitting within the tradition of lightweight timber framing and cladding, which is often taken as the archetypal use of materials in Aotearoa New Zealand.”

Rather than a minimalist, gallery-like environment, the house offers a series of complex spaces of varying proportions and heights, a rich layering of materials and surfaces and ledges for the clients to fill with photos and objets d’art.

As a long linear coastal site, it was inevitable that the resulting form and materiality would respond in a similar fashion. “The narrow site is reinforced by the linearity of the house,” describes Finn. “Planes of concrete fins and beams run east-west towards the sea and iconic Rangitoto Island – echoing the flow of volcanic underground streams running from nearby Lake Pupuke to the ocean.” The position on the cliff meant that an anchored response using a heavier, raw material language was key to ensuring an appropriate engagement with the surrounding climatic and topographic conditions. The marine environment itself also necessitated robust, sturdy materials, Finn says. “[The materials] either challenge the elements with their sense of permanence and longevity or allow the atmosphere to weather and patina the surface, growing richer with age.”

With framed views out over the harbour, the warm and textural palette typifies the purpose of a home as a place of refuge from which to watch the world, and changing weather, pass by. The fusing of open and closed elements across the site is balanced within its cool and warm materiality. In a sculptural way, the use of concrete is softened by the introduction of curves internally, using the hardness of the overall composition as a contrast to the forms that the material is creating. “The use of expressed concrete inside and out allowed us to develop the house as a series of sculpted walls within the orthogonal forms,” describes Pete. “The shapes define the outdoor courtyard as the heart of the house, the slow stair rising to the upper floor, the curved room hovering over the entry and the front door, and the sculpted raking column supporting it.”

With framed views out over the harbour, the warm and textural palette typifies the purpose of a home as a place of refuge from which to watch the world, and changing weather, pass by.

In shaping the idea of legacy and what that means for all the occupants, passive thermal operation was crucial, with a series of mechanisms and systems sensitively integrated. “The home is designed for extensive passive thermal control – natural heating from solar gain to reduce heat load, with the concrete floors and walls acting as a heat sink to reflect heat as the house cools in the evening,” explains Finn. “The mass of the building allows for a significantly stable thermal environment.” Together with the natural cooling of a green roof and roof gardens, minimising water runoff and controlling natural ventilation, energy capture and smart systems ensure a low level of maintenance and energy and water usage.

By focusing on functionality and how Clifftops House could best be of service to its owners, an open canvas of sorts has been created – one that is robust and unwavering, despite its exposed location, and which defies the typical local vernacular. Considering both the past chapters of those living within and catering for those to come, Bossley Architects has carefully woven people, place and time together with grace.