The first time I saw images of Fearon Hay's Shark Alley House in a 2005 edition of Architectural Record, my jaw dropped to the floor and it took all my might to pick it back up. The quintiscential modern New Zealand house- low profile, pocket doors all around, the almost seamless blending of inside and out. Here's what Architectural Record has to say:
To make the journey to Shark Alley House, you travel by boat or light aircraft some 56 miles northeast of Auckland to Great Barrier Island (also known as Aotea), New Zealand. Then, after a spin on the island’s serpentine main road, you need tides low enough to let your four-wheel-drive vehicle continue over sand dunes and splash right across an estuary. With only 900 permanent residents and no electrical grid or public water-supply system, this mountainous, 110-square-mile landmass remains mostly rugged and untamed. Its dense bush, rare fauna and flora, and spectacular white sand beaches are “still quite undiscovered even by New Zealanders,” according to Jeff Fearon of Auckland-based Fearon Hay Architects, designers of Shark Alley House. Even the house’s owners, he adds, found their 30-acre site on an isolated cove “a bit by mistake.”
Truly one of my favorite New Zealand architecture firms, check out the rest of their portfolio here.
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