Island time: Fiji home
The house presents a closed face to the street, with privacy provided by vertical cyclone screening.
The colour palette is limited mostly to white, which creates a clean look and also helps to keep the house cool.
Indoor and outdoor spaces flow and melt into one another.
The house is arranged around the T-shaped pool. The outdoor spaces are given as much importance as are those indoors.
“While it looks sophisticated, this is actually a simple concrete building using Fijian technology with flash aluminium cyclone shuttering,” says architect Andrew Patterson.
The house is designed to accommodate extended family, with many areas in which to relax and two kitchen spaces – one is for behind-the-scenes food prep and the other is a more social space.
The concrete floors have a cooling effect in the living room and formal dining room.
The property includes a separate three-bedroomed guest suite while five more bedrooms are provided in the main house.
A coral wall adds texture to the living space. Some timber is introduced in the private spaces.
With its infinity edges, the pool reflects the view of the islands over the water and, in certain lights, melts into the sea.
With sparkling waters on one side and a lush mountain range on the other, this house is the stuff tropical dreams are made of.
Situated on Naisoso Island, just a stone’s throw from Fiji’s main international airport in Nadi, the plot of 3000m2 was ideal for the owner couple, Raina and Tejash, who both work overseas but prefer to base themselves in their home country.
They called on Auckland’s Patterson Associates to design the home, which needed to be able to accommodate a large extended family. They had a relationship with the practice already through a previous project, where Raina had worked as solicitor for a developer client.
“The home-owners are very international people,” says architect Andrew Patterson. “We don’t often think of it in this way, but Fiji is a crossroads to the Pacific with close links to Asia and the United States.”
In terms of aesthetic, they requested it be international in style, with a tropical feel that relates to its location. “Our clients come from a large extended family with a strong tradition in local architecture. Homes are practical, robust and permanent. Food and cooking are an enormous part of family life.
“The houses are constructed in concrete for durability in cyclones; they’re always white to keep them cool in the Fijian summer and laid out for multiple generations to live together as one. There are often two kitchens and big vegetable gardens, and lots of spaces for family to come together,” says Patterson.
At the front door, a small temple greets the home-owners. From here, a reflecting pond leads the eye past the living area towards the main room, which is double-sided to allow a breeze through and negate the need for air conditioning.
The interiors are clean and white, with cool concrete floors and grade-eight cyclone-standard aluminium windows. Indoor and outdoor spaces flow and melt into one another. Large overhangs protect from tropical downpours and allow the use of outdoor seating in almost any weather. In the living area, a coral stone wall adds texture.
Deeper in the house, a timber-clad cinema space provides a shady place to relax. The property includes a separate three-bedroomed guest suite while five more bedrooms are provided in the main house.
Naisoso Island has been built up to protect against any future rise in sea level. The site was compacted and raised before the house was built and a berm was built across the beachfront. A storm surge pump is installed beneath the pool to protect against high waters.
The structure of the house is very simple, says Patterson. “In Fiji, houses must be easy to build and, because there are no issues with earthquakes there, you can design a house like this with a concrete foundation. While it looks sophisticated, this is actually a simple concrete building using Fijian technology with flash aluminium cyclone shuttering.”
The vertical lines and randomised spacing of this shuttering create a curtain-like effect that gives the house a sense of contemporary character. It also allows for a degree of privacy from the beach and the street, and protection from the sun.
The house is arranged around the T-shaped pool, which is completed by a pavilion overlooking the beach, containing a barbecue and bar. With its infinity edges, the pool reflects the view of the islands over the water and, in certain lights, melts into the sea.
This article first appeared in Urbis magazine.
