Patel House

Award:  Residential – Commended

Project:  Patel House

Entrant:  Wilco Precast Ltd

Owner:  Mr Raman Patel

Architect:  Architex NZ

Consultant:  Jackson Clapperton Partners

Contractor:  Ultra Commercial Construction Ltd

What the judges said

There was no outright winner for The Residential Award, but the judges awarded a Commendation to the Patel House at Matakana. The home, designed by Andre Hodgkins of Architex NZ for Mr Raman Patel, was built by Ultra Commercial Construction of Epsom, Auckland. The previous house, on the exposed site with spectacular 360 degree panoramic views, had been destroyed by gale-force winds, so the brief for this replacement home was to express the solidity and robustness of concrete - maximizing the use of precast concrete to allow for rapid assembly in the site's extreme wind conditions. Wilco's Litecrete insulated precast panels provided an ideal solution.

The site is accessed by a 2km private road off the main highway and the house sits on an exposed ridge with a 360 degree panorama.  The clients wanted a substantial house that would withstand the rigors of such an exposed site.  The road up to the building platform was challenging for both the mobile crane and the truck and trailer units which delivered the precast panels.

The elevated site is exposed to the extremes with spectacular views - and required an equivalent response.  Concrete was the obvious choice of building material due to both its physical and psychological solidity.  The base of the building is bedded into the crest of the hill, and rises quite monumentally out of the green pasture which surrounds it.  The planning resulted in two very contained building areas connected by a loose light and voluminous living space which opens up completely on opposite sites to the countryside below.  These two pavilions contain the private spaces which require security and enclosure with limited openings.  They are walled in tall Litecrete lightweight precast concrete panels of vertical ribbed surface treatment designed to conceal the otherwise obvious joints which result in a panelised system, with an apparently seamless result.  The panels were cast on 150mm wide vertical bandsawn pine planks to provide a woodgrain finish to the concrete surface.  The Litecrete panels were chosen because of their unique strength-to-weight ratios, light weight and in-built thermal insulation properties provided by the pumice aggregate.  The precast concrete work is exemplary both in its detailed design resolution and execution.