kauri

FILE II

Two dark volumes, one in stone and one in timber, separated by a cut you walk in through. From outside you can already see in. 356 m² on a single floor, three bedrooms and an office.

Area: 356 m² · Year: 2025 · Service: Architectural design

The house is split in two, and you enter through the middle.

Not a lobby. Not a door under a canopy. The house separates into two dark masses and what is left between them is the way in: open, meant to be walked through, declared from the facade. You see the inside before you enter. That is not a design detail. It is the stance of the house.

356 square metres on a single floor. 27.94 m across the front. Two volumes with pitched roofs at different angles, neither repeating the other. Dark stone on the left volume, vertical timber on the right. Two materials. Two characters. One project that knows exactly how to hold them together without either one winning.

You arrive over a paved platform and a raised walkway, with garden on both sides. The house does not open all at once: first you cross the cut between the two volumes, and from there you can already see in. The front porch is 13.73 m² covered.

Everything knows where it ends.

Kitchen, dining and living are 17 m² each, all three the same. There is no large living room with the kitchen squeezed in at the back: whoever cooks has the same space as whoever hosts. The laundry is built in and there is storage where it is needed.

Three bedrooms. The main one has a dressing room of almost 9 m² and its own bathroom; the other two share one, and there is a guest toilet. The bedrooms sit on their own side rather than opening off the living room, so whoever goes to bed early does not hear the guests. And an office of 20 m², with a door.

At the back: 12 metres of covered porch. The place where the house shows nothing to anyone and does exactly as it pleases. Covered parking for two cars with access built into the plan.

Two characters. One house.

It has two volumes, a cut down the middle, and 356 square metres that know where each thing begins and where it ends.

The gap is the design. Not the accident.