The owner of this house, in the Auckland suburb of Mt Eden, is both the architect and the client. Jonathan Hawksworth of Black Box Architects designed the house for his family. There are two quite different bathrooms – a family bathroom, which is shared by his two daughters, and an ensuite for Hawksworth and his wife.

For the girls’ bathroom the Hawksworths wanted a durable and hard-wearing space with simple, clean colours and materials. It has a soft, neutral palette of white, cream and beech-look wood veneer. From the hallway the floor appears to be made up of very small mosiac tiles with various shades of cream and a very soft shimmer running through the surface. So it was a surprise when I stepped into the room and it was soft underfoot. It is vinyl – an uncommon choice in recent times but also a practical one for a family bathroom. It feels warm and softer than tiles and is presumably easy to clean with no mouldy grouting to be maintained or repaired.

There is a lot of storage – the back wall of the shower conceals a bank of it – along with a laundry chute. This is an encouragement for the children to get dirty clothes to the laundry – one that Hawksworth’s wife Justine says has worked so well she sometimes wonders if clean clothes find their way in there too. Power points are placed in the back of the vanity drawers so that hairdryers can be kept out of sight. Colour is introduced into the scheme with accessories and towels that can be easily changed and updated when it suits the girls.

In contrast to the soft surfaces and tones of this room the ensuite bathroom is a much more dramatic affair. This room was designed to be more masculine and has large-format dark tiles and a walk-in shower area. The shower has one wall of frosted glass which allows light into the small space without compromising privacy.

At one end of the shower there is a glass strip which lets more light in from the bathroom and creates a sense that the wall on which the shower mixer is mounted is not closing off the space entirely. It is a room with clean simple lines and, like the girls’ bathroom, is a thoughtfully designed user-friendly space for its occupants.