A planning rule, taken literally
The site at Whangapoua, on the Coromandel Peninsula’s eastern coast, lies within a designated coastal erosion zone where all buildings must be removable. Many designers would treat that as a constraint to satisfy on paper. Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects made it the generating idea: the hut sits on two thick wooden sleds, so it can be dragged back inland, or across the beach and onto a barge, if the shoreline moves.
The response gives the project its character. Rather than a lightweight relocatable box, the hut is a deliberate piece of timber architecture that happens to be portable — a vertical, tower-like form the architect likens to a surf lifesaving or observation tower, perched on the dunes rather than dug into them.
“The hut is a series of simple design moves. The form is reminiscent of a surf lifesaving or observation tower.”
— Ken Crosson, quoted in Architecture Now
The shutter is the façade
Closed, the hut is a rough-sawn macrocarpa object that blends into the dune landscape, with a small rear volume clad in contrasting flat sheet — the cheap fibre-cement board familiar from generations of New Zealand baches. Open, it is transformed by a single element: a two-storey shutter on the beach-facing façade that winches up to form an awning.
Raised, the shutter shades the interior from high summer sun while letting lower winter sun in, and reveals double-height steel-framed glass doors that open the room, in the architects’ words, much like a tent flap. The mechanism is manual, operated by a wheel, which fits the clients’ wish for a low-energy holiday ritual. The NZIA jury questioned whether the sleds and wheel were more gestural than functional, yet found that the building’s conceits only added to its delight — an honest reading of a project where performance and play overlap.
A family of five in a hut
The clients asked to explore the real essence of holiday living — small, simple and functional. The plan accommodates a family of five in a kitchen, dining and living space, a bathroom and two sleeping zones. The children sleep in a three-tiered bunk with secret cubby-holes built in; the parents’ mezzanine bedroom, reached by a wall-mounted ladder through a closable hatch, shares the living room’s view of the surf and the Mercury Islands through the tall glazing.
The everyday rituals — cooking, eating, sleeping, showering — are all connected to the outside, so the deck and beach act as the hut’s missing rooms. Timber carries from cladding and structure into linings and joinery, giving the interior the warmth of a traditional bach without nostalgic detailing.
Self-sufficient on the dunes
Sustainability in this brief starts with size. Beyond the modest footprint, the hut is designed to function largely as a self-sustaining unit: a roof terrace catches rainwater for gravity tanks, a worm-tank system handles waste, and potable and grey water are kept separate. Apart from food deliveries and non-recyclable rubbish, the hut asks little of the site.
The project was widely recognised, including an NZIA New Zealand Architecture Award in the Small Project category, an NZ Wood Timber Design Award and a commendation in the Architectural Review House awards. Its lasting value for coastal clients is the shift in attitude it models: a removability requirement treated not as a downgrade, but as the brief for a more inventive building.
Sources
Research drawn from published project documentation. Photography credits are for attribution only — images on this page are placeholders until rights are cleared.
- Crosson Architects — Hut on Sleds, Whangapoua
- Dezeen — Hut on Sleds by Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects (Jul 2012)
- ArchDaily — Whangapoua / Crosson Clarke Carnachan Architects
- ArchDaily — New Zealand Architecture Award winners 2013 (jury citation)
- Designboom — Timber hut on sleds (Mar 2014)
- Architecture Now — Viewfinder: Simon Devitt
- The Architectural Review — AR House 2012 Commended
