Hekerua Bay Residence, Waiheke Island

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MONTE CRAVEN ARCHITECTURAL AWARD

Hekerua Bay Residence, Waiheke Island, Auckland

 

Submitted by:  Structure Design Ltd

Owner:  Anonymous

Architect:  Archimedia

Consulting Engineer:  Structure Design Ltd

Contractor:  Canam Construction Ltd


Summary:

The house site sits atop a cliff which falls 30m to a rocky cove on Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf Auckland.

The house is a collaboration with the client, an engineer with meticulous attention to detail.  He is a Structural Engineer and owner of a large construction company. His love of concrete especially in-situ concrete defined it as the core material of the structure.

The curved concrete form of the residence is evocative of a continuous ribbon that folds and rotates on its’ axis to form the roofs, walls and floor for all three upper levels over the more solid base of the guest bedrooms.

The client along with the Architect pushed his consulting Engineers to the absolute limits of concrete design to result in a very fine structure of minimal proportions given the size of the cantilevers and unsupported spans and curved feature walls.

We believe it to be one of the largest entirely reinforced concrete Residential residence in New Zealand.

From a Structural view the building encompasses every possible type of concrete construction:

  • Reinforced concrete bored soldier piles
  • In-situ concrete foundations & beams
  • In-situ concrete shear walls
  • Masonry walls
  • Pre-cast & pre-tensioned concrete floor slabs and ribs
  • Post-tensioned concrete beams and floors
  • Specialist custom formwork testing and design for the curved walls
  • Custom site-specific concrete


What the judges said:

Monte Craven challenged us to encourage closer collaboration between architecture and engineering to produce outstanding structures in concrete.  We are confident he would be immensely pleased with this outcome.

The house is a collaboration between all parties – demonstrating meticulous attention to detail whilst pushing the boundaries of concrete design and construction.

The workmanship and finish incorporating a multitude of concrete forms is at the highest level and is testament to the diligence of the design and construction teams.

The supremely elegant result is undoubtedly of a form and shape that makes its execution in concrete outstanding.