Hay House

The brief

They bought the block and the design.

The brief was to demolish the existing small red-brick cottage and create a contemporary home that takes advantage of the northerly aspect and the site’s unique but difficult topography. The back of the block backed into a two-storey cliff — creating difficult and unusable space.

Substantial excavation reclaimed this previously unavailable site to create a spacious, terraced home. Council controls were turned to advantage: a roof terrace was fashioned by aligning it with the upper cliff level, creating a fantastic entertaining and pool area with ocean views — from what was once a detached back yard.

The design secured DA approval when the original clients moved on to another site. The new owners loved the design so much they built it with only minimum changes.

The design thinking

Turning a cliff into a terrace.

The two-storey cliff at the rear of the block was the design’s problem and its opportunity. Excavating into it allowed us to create a terraced home that steps with the landform — and the alignment of the roof terrace with the top of the cliff gave us a level outdoor platform with ocean views that would otherwise have been impossible to achieve.

That single move — treating the cliff as a level datum rather than a boundary — is what transforms this home from a standard contemporary new build into something genuinely special.