It is definitely not the obvious first choice for a contemporary family home, but one of Auckland’s most famous houses, the Rees Townhouse, designed by Claude Megson, is being lovingly restored by its new owner and, in the process, slightly tweaked to fit its new purpose.

The original 1970’s house was designed for one; with studio-like spaces and a mezzanine bedroom. Architect Dominic Glamuzina says it invokes the feeling that one should have a cocktail in one’s hand at all times while wandering through it. The intense yet beautiful spaces, which are configured over various floor levels, have a clear verticality to them. Above, acrylic skylights and Megson’s characteristic periscope windows play with light.

The most recent addition, designed by Glamuzina Paterson Architects, saw an original bathroom converted into a bedroom and an extension added to allow for a new family bathroom.

“Trying to add to this house, with its undulating elevations and compressed but unexpected spaces, was a massive undertaking,” says architect Aaron Paterson.

“We wanted to do something that was us, but that also referred back to the language of the original Megson building.”

The result is a 10m2 extension on the lowest level of the house. Essentially underground, due to a large retaining wall that pares back the section, the bathroom incorporates a high oculus aperture that draws light across the almost rocket-like form of the space, a telescopic window, that nods to the original periscopic windows.

Its placement allows privacy, while framing a view of the sky and trees. White tiles punctuated with blue grout adorn the bath and walls, meeting a stained meranti plywood shell that wraps around the top of the space, accentuating the telescopic form of the window