Suburban stealth: Fife St House
Brick walls come up from the ground on the long sides of the site and the roof appears to float on top of clerestory windows.
The black materials in the kitchen are juxtaposed with timber on the walls, floors and ceilings.
The kitchen backsplash is made of upcycled computer chips.
Adjacent to the kitchen is a balcony and the sun-filled living area.
The plan follows a dumbbell shape with a corridor between the two ends concealing service areas and a guest bedroom.
The negative space was carved out to allow for a courtyard to provide an additional, sunny outdoor area.
The materials and palette are pared back throughout the home.
The corridor is clad in dark-stained cedar, tieing in the black hues in the kitchen.
Clerestory windows allow light in while still giving the homeowners privacy.
This house makes the most of a typical long, narrow suburban site, resulting in a family home whose grandest moments are stealthily concealed from the street.
The Fife St House, designed by Dorrington Atcheson Architects (DAA), exemplifies the modern Kiwi housing trends – from the separation of parent and child spaces to the sun-drenched living areas and right down to the black kitchen with cedar accents.
The plan is dictated in large part by the site, which is – like many suburban Auckland sites – long and narrow. What resulted is a plan shaped like a sideways dumbbell, or a dog bone if you prefer. This allows for privacy on the street-facing elevation and a North-facing courtyard. The frontage is fairly nondescript, flat and clad in warm timber with a concealed garage.
Architect Tim Dorrington calls it a “stealth bomber”. “The idea was to try and make it fly under the radar a bit,” he says. “There were some previous iterations that made more of a statement, but we decided on something more pared back in the end.”
Its context also made privacy a priority. Brick walls come up from the ground on the long sides of the house and the roof appears to almost float on top. “There’s a clerestory that runs all the way around the top of the brick walls, which creates the ability to get light in without losing any privacy.”
As you enter and make your way through the house, the main bedroom is at the front and a corridor of services runs back toward the living areas. Dorrington describes it as a black wedge that contains the laundry, the family or main bathroom, a guest bedroom, the stairs, butler’s pantry and, finally the kitchen. “It allowed us to group all of those spaces together and, at the same time, hide them away when they are not needed.”
The kitchen, then, follows the same materiality and is cloaked in black, contrasting nicely with warm timber ceilings and walls and the sunny disposition of the adjacent living room. “We wanted to look at some mass materials and some light materials. Rather than a white on white, it’s a black on timber palette across the whole house.” Dorrington adds.
Connected to the living area is the aforementioned north-facing courtyard and jutting off the kitchen is a small balcony with stairs that lead down to the pool. The lower level houses the children’s bedrooms and rumpus room – a spatial layout that many family homes are opting for, giving separate spaces to adults and children that can then adapt as the family grows and children move away.
Overall, the home is modern suburban living at it’s finest: unobtrusive from the outside, but flourishing into a functional space that also looks good on the inside.
