The design and construction of a holiday home for two bachelors. The two clients, who both worked in the building industry, had amassed over the years a motley collection of building elements, including doors and windows of various sizes. Their wish was to build a bach on a plot of land in Opunake, where every summer they would pilgrimage to surf. Their materials budget was $20,000.
The resulting design comments on a New Zealand dream of owning a bach on your own piece of coastal land – a modest place to call one’s own – a dream that has been lost in recent years by the rapid level of investment in New Zealand coastal waters, where baches now bring the scale, comfort and trappings of suburban living to the remote coast.
A weather-beaten box aesthetic was created by the use of a marine-grade treated-plywood façade and a small parapet on three sides. The interior presents two bedrooms divided by a spacious living/kitchen area that opens out, through the ‘found’ French doors, onto an expansive deck. The opening above the French doors was reinforced to allow wider doors to be installed in the future, when finances allow.
The resulting design comments on a New Zealand dream of owning a bach on your own piece of coastal land – a modest place to call one’s own – a dream that has been lost in recent years by the rapid level of investment in New Zealand coastal waters, where baches now bring the scale, comfort and trappings of suburban living to the remote coast.
A weather-beaten box aesthetic was created by the use of a marine-grade treated-plywood façade and a small parapet on three sides. The interior presents two bedrooms divided by a spacious living/kitchen area that opens out, through the ‘found’ French doors, onto an expansive deck. The opening above the French doors was reinforced to allow wider doors to be installed in the future, when finances allow.
