Description:

Poppa's Palace was conceived as an reconsideration for intergenerational living in an urban context. The clients who live in central Auckland, with their 3 children had an awkward and unused backyard, which sat adjacent to residential neighbours, a community centre, a carpark, a laneway and commercial business.

Conversation about building something here started about five or six years ago. Back then, Poppa Pete was based in Vanuatu where he’d lived for 20-odd years, practising as a vet on the island of Santo. When his circumstances changed, he started to think about coming home to be closer to family, and this little backyard seemed to offer an opportunity.

Bounded by the carpark, a small pedestrian lane, a neighbour, and a concrete power pole, the house is small – a sort of trapezoidal shape, narrowing as the section does, and wider at its mouth. It sits below the main house, on the south side, and shares its 685-square-metre section. At 52 square metres, technically it’s a minor dwelling, which functions entirely separately from the main dwelling, which has its own access onto the lane through a small courtyard and an elegant black steel-and-cedar gate.

Inside the house is simple, a scheme in which spines of cabinetry bisect the plan on two axes. One runs across the width of the building and contains utilities, pantry, fridge and bedroom wardrobe. The other spans its length, containing the kitchen and running into the bathroom. The spaces sit naturally, flowing out to the front verandah, and there is only one internal door to the bathroom. It’s a game of Tetris, squeezing functional spaces into an awkward shape, without making them feel compromised.

The intention was to keep the footprint small and spend the money where it matters. The design takes standard materials and makes them sing with considered details and moments. It also leaves money for the things that count, such as a steel portal frame that eliminates the need for any posts along the front of the house. Here, sliders run floor to ceiling, and the wall between the kitchen and bedroom is slightly stepped back, so the doors can slide in front of it, pushing away completely from the living area. Similarly, the verandah is cantilevered from the side walls, supported lightly by slender doubled cedar posts.

Inside, it feels generous and airy. Two large skylights make up for the lack of windows on the boundary walls. Finding a spot for them that sat away from the firewalls was something of a story in itself. The stud height is taller than average at 2.6 metres, reaching up to 3.1 metres inside the skylights.

The intention was to find a way to live generously, amongst generations and (hopefully) contribute something to the wider fabric of the neighbourhood and city. When buildings get small – and when they have to fit into forgotten scraps of land in strange corners of our cities – the thinking behind the spaces we craft become all the more important.