Nestled between the forest and the ocean on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, Te Arai Beach House manifests as a contemporary cabin in the woods.
“The power of the site when we first visited was in the ocean, the forest and the sand dunes. So we wanted to provide a building that doesn’t challenge or reduce the sense of beauty that’s already there,” says Tim Hay, design director and co-founder at Fearon Hay. “We instantly looked, in terms of the architecture, to references that related to those different thresholds – the ability to emerge from the forest, discover the ocean, but still have a sense of protection,” notes Hay. “So this idea of the cabin in the woods was an idea that stuck from very early on.”
