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After eighteen months of design, consultation, and careful negotiation with a protected coastal setting, ground has broken on one of our most ambitious residential projects to date. It is a milestone worth pausing on — and a good moment to explain what the project is, and why it took the shape it did.

The site

The house sits on a steep hillside above a quiet bay, a site as constrained as it is beautiful. Access is limited to a single track, the geology shifts from rock to loose soil within a few metres, and a protected habitat runs along the shoreline below.

Those constraints did most of the designing. The buildable area was small and awkward, so the house had to go tall rather than wide, and every decision about foundations and drainage had to respect the ecology downhill. We spent nearly a year in survey and consultation before we felt we had earned the right to build here at all.

The design

A concrete and glass volume steps down the slope, cantilevering over the fall of the land so the footprint touches the hillside as lightly as possible. Living spaces open to the water; service and sleeping quarters tuck into the earth behind, where the ground keeps them cool and quiet.

The cantilever is not a gesture for its own sake — it lets us leave the most sensitive ground undisturbed while still reaching the view. Structurally it was the hardest thing to resolve, and the part of the project the whole team is quietly proudest of.

Building responsibly

Working above a protected shoreline means the construction method matters as much as the finished building. Ground is being handled to prevent runoff, deliveries are timed around the tides and the access track, and the trades on site have been briefed on the habitat they are working above.

What's next

Groundworks and foundations run through the coming season, with the structural frame expected before winter and the envelope watertight by spring. We'll share progress from site as the building takes shape — including, we hope, the moment the cantilever first steps out over the slope.

Our coastal residence has been recognised at this year's regional design awards, an honour we share with everyone who helped bring the project from sketch to site. Awards are never the reason we do the work, but this one landed on a project we care about, judged by people whose opinion we respect.

The project

The winning house was praised for its restraint and its sensitivity to a difficult, beautiful site — qualities that are easy to talk about and hard to hold onto through eighteen months of construction.

It is a modest building by square footage but an uncompromising one in detail, and it asked a great deal of everyone involved. Seeing it recognised for exactly the qualities we fought hardest to protect is its own quiet vindication.

What the jury said

The jury singled out the building's quiet relationship to its landscape and its disciplined material palette, noting that the design "knows exactly when to stop." We couldn't ask for a kinder summary of what we were after.

They also highlighted the house's environmental performance — a reminder that restraint and responsibility tend to be the same decision viewed from different angles.

A shared credit

Awards land on a single name, but buildings never do. Our thanks go to the clients who trusted the idea, the consultants who tested it, and the trades who built it to a standard the drawings only hoped for.

Where it leaves us

Recognition is pleasant; it is not a destination. If the award does anything useful, it is to remind us which instincts to trust on the next project — and to hold the line on the small, unglamorous decisions that, added up, are what the jury actually noticed.

We are expanding. A second studio, overlooking the water in the harbour district, opens its doors this season and gives our growing team the room it has quietly needed. It is a change we've approached the way we approach a building — slowly, and with a clear idea of what it is for.

Room to build

The new space is as much workshop as office — dedicated areas for physical model-making, material samples, and full-scale mock-ups, alongside the desks. We design better when we can build small before we build large.

A proper workshop changes how a studio thinks. Ideas that would have stayed on screen now get made in card, timber, and plaster within the hour, and the whole team can gather around something real rather than a rendering.

By the water

The harbour setting is not incidental. Light off the water, a working waterfront, and a constant reminder that architecture lives in a real climate all find their way, eventually, into the work.

Room to grow

The move also gives us room to take on the people we've been wanting to hire. Over the coming year we'll be adding to the interiors, landscape, and technology teams, and the new studio was sized deliberately for who we intend to become, not only who we are today.

Visit us

Clients and collaborators are welcome by appointment. If you're nearby and curious, get in touch — we'll happily show you around, walk you through what's on the workshop bench, and put the kettle on.