Huia Road, Pt Chevalier

Brief
Warner Bros approached us to work on sub-dividing a site at Huia Road in Auckland’s Pt. Chevalier to design four houses, each with its own unique style.

New kids on the block
At our first site visit, we discovered an area that contained two houses from the early 1920s in a state of disrepair. We were tasked with turning the plot into a space for four freehold titles accommodating four 180m² (approx.) dwellings.

There were two main challenges. Firstly, we needed to introduce a modern flair that would sit sympathetically within the context of the surrounding timber weatherboard bungalow landscape. Secondly, we had to deliver our services within a short time period – prepare design concepts, secure a non-notified resource consent and produce technical documentation sufficient for a building consent – to align with a realityTV show’s production schedule.

We designed four stand-alone new builds with three bedrooms. As the houses needed to have the same number of rooms, but remain unique, we chose different styles, while also creating interesting spaces to give each property its own distinct look and feel. The two rear houses were designed with internal courtyards to capitalise on the long, narrow sections. One of the houses with street frontage featured double-height ceiling spaces, maximising the height in restriction to boundary regulations.

Our role was to make each dwelling a blank canvas, ready for four groups of contestants to add their own layouts, colourways, textures, and furnishings, to show off their creativity and design talents.

All four houses recently went under the hammer at auction, selling for more than $2.5 million each. The popular TV renovation show also smashed two of its previous records for the highest sale price and biggest profit.