Annandale Seascape | Pattersons

The Honeymoon House, Whitehead Bay, Annandale, Banks Peninsula
A small beachside cottage was designed to align with a double rock arch called “The Comb”. Unfortunately during construction the Comb collapsed into a simple rock spire by the February 2011 earthquake. 

Thankfully the construction was undamaged.
The cottage is now finished. It sets into a rock escarpment in a tiny boulder strewn South Pacific Cove and is constructed largely from rock quarried near its site with insitu poured concrete floors, ceilings and precast under an earth turfed roof. The structure is integrated into the escarpment above to protect occupants from falling debri. An interlocking geometry responding to both near and far views is lined with horizontal Macrocarpa. This forms integrated joinery, wall and ceiling panels behind double glaze low e glass in storm and shatter proof steel mullions. These use earthquake resistant sliding heads. The project incorporated an extensive reforestation and re vegetation sub project. It is a shelter designed as a honeymoon retreat for paying guests and the owners family and consists lobby, living/sleeping and a bathroom. It is a romantic hideaway, accessible only by farm track or helicopter as an all weather experience where couples can be intimate with themselves and with nature in the roar of the ocean, oblivious of demands from the outside modern world.