Tag Archives: Video Home Tours

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Travel, Videos, Views

New Zealand Home Tour: Mahuika – Waiheke Island

Video April 8, 2022 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Blending into the black of the bush, Mahuika is a private island house that embraces the external environment. Faced with a challenging site, Daniel Marshall Architects (DMA) uses the unique building context to infuse Mahuika with a sense of legend and soul, crafting a secluded home with a fiery past.

Video Timeline: 00:00 – An Introduction to the Private Island House 00:32 – Mahuika – Fire and Renewal 01:09 – Utilising Natural Light 01:35 – Remote and Private 01:55 – The Pool 02:24 – The Kitchen Appliances 03:12 – Bathrooms and Bedrooms 03:55 – Challenges of the Build 04:18 – The Materials 04:43 – What the Architect is Most Proud Of

A private island house, Mahuika is located on Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf of New Zealand. After a shocking incident that saw the project burnt just weeks before it was initially due to be completed, DMA named the home after the Māori Goddess of Fire. The timber-framed structure is designed so that the living room occupies the architectural cantilever, shading the pool below whilst bedrooms spread across different levels of the home.

In both surrounding context and brief, Mahuika presented DMA with obstacles to overcome. The changeable nature of the Auckland climate meant that the interior design and architecture of the private island house had to complement flitting natural light and striking external scenes. In addition, the design of the house had to be conducive to minimal visits to the shops during the week.

DMA convincingly responds to the difficulties proposed by the project, finding beauty within innovative solutions. The practice embraces the environment as part of the reality of living in a private island house, applying floor-to-ceiling glazing to the architecture of Mahuika in promotion of an authentic lifestyle.

In the kitchen, a generous whole foods storage system meets the requirements of the home whilst the sleek surface of Fisher & Paykel appliances reflects the view of the bush and sea. In Mahuika, the Auckland climate has the ideal subject. DMA designs the private island house to gracefully accept the ever-changing natural elements and vistas, welcoming them as defining features and reflecting them back out as parts of itself.

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos

Home Tour: ‘Menzies Pop’ In Sumner, New Zealand

Video December 24, 2021 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

An architect’s own home, Menzies Pop is a celebration of architectural craft. Introducing a refined material palette to the pre-existing building, Common Architecture maximises the potential of the New Zealand property. Located in Sumner, a suburb settled on the outskirts of Christchurch, Menzies Pop is a distinctive concrete construction.

A house tour of ‘The Bunker’, as it is referred to by locals, reveals the creative possibilities of the building that culminated in it becoming an architect’s own home. Hand-crafted details give character to the foundation of the house, such as clover shapes cut into the parapets and a skilfully carved arched entrance. Features retained by Common Architecture, such as a concrete ceiling and concrete work beams, present the home as an architecturally exciting offering.

Cementing its status as an architect’s own home, Menzies Pop emerges as a thoughtful reconfiguration of its original building. Three bedrooms are reimagined as a kitchen-living area, with their north-west orientation allowing the spaces to have access to a deck at the rear of the home. By moving the kitchen into a more communal part of the house, Common Architecture presents the space as central to family life. The interior design of the structure speaks to the fact that it is an architect’s own home.

An expert eye is applied to the scale of furniture, skylights and the single-length boards that cover some of the walls of the home, so that the dimensions of the building are emphasised. The beloved timber of the pre-existing home is complemented by teak, stone and brass accents, which form a sophisticated extension of the original material palette. Embracing its structural history, Menzies Pop stands as a cleverly crafted example of an architect’s own home.

Timeline: 00:00 – The Local Project’s Print Publication 00:20 – An Introduction to Menzies Pop by Common Architecture 00:40 – Where It’s Located 00:52 – The Existing House 01:35 – The Beginning of the Renovations 02:45 – The Key Elements of the New Renovation 03:47 – The Kitchen 04:01 – The Extension (First Floor Edition) 05:03 – The Key Learnings 05:41 – What Common Architecture Are Most Proud Of 06:19 – The Local Project’s Tri-Annual Subscription

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Travel, Videos, Views

Island View: ‘Villa Mandra – Mykonos Island, Greece’

Video March 31, 2021 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Sitting on the ridge of the hill of Aleomandra in Mykonos yet almost entirely hidden from view, Villa Mandra looks straight out to sea and the sunset over the neighbouring island of Delos. A 6-bedroom holiday house built for a young, dynamic couple to enjoy with their family and friends, it celebrates its spectacular view from a grounded viewpoint blended into a sensitively landscaped, stone-walled garden that screens it from the road behind.

The house is built upon the idea of slow, laid-back summer living, and encourages mindful connection with family, friends and the freedom to exist peacefully in nature. Form follows emotion rather than function, as every space becomes another opportunity for rest, reflection and exploration.

Homes, Travel, Videos

Home Tours: Mountain Ski Retreat In Deer Valley, Park City, Utah (Video)

Video January 10, 2021 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XctEnMTfOYc

Just steps to the Northside lift, this magnificent Deer Valley slope-side residence is exquisitely designed and beautifully furnished to the highest standards with mountain modern comfort in mind. Looking directly onto the Woodside ski run and featuring breathtaking views of Lady Morgan, the valley and beyond, this custom remodeled two story home has it all; an open chef’s kitchen with top of the line appliances and a gracious built-in banquet, a great room with dramatic vaulted ceilings, a stone fireplace and big picture windows, plus main level and upper level master suites, custom bunk room that sleeps 6 peacefully, an additional guest suite with bunk, 3 ensuite baths plus powder and a view filled balcony with gas grill.

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Travel, Videos

Innovative Home Design: “K Valley House” In New Zealand (Video Tour)

Video September 10, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

K VALLEY HOUSE

A retreat for film makers.

The clients are a couple, a director and director of photography in the film industry, their jobs involve them filming on location for stretches of time. This house is the space to which they retreat between filming.

The site is 20 hectares of farmland on the Kauaeranga river in the valley of the same name, it stretches from high on the hillside to the river banks and includes a ridgeline which commands a panoramic view of the farmland below and the native bush on the opposite slopes of the valley.

The clients brief called for a response which engaged with the site in both a filmic as well as practical way, they live a life of self-sufficiency while on the land, including growing, animal husbandry and butchery. The clients spoke of materials that have a patina of age, of sustainability, of recycling and adaptive re-use, of provenance of materials.

Our response was to concentrate the small mass of building that the brief determined into a singular geometric form that could hold its own in the big landscape. We positioned the form straddling the ridgeline, engaged with the slope at the high end and floating above the land as it falls away. Drawing from the vernacular of rusty corrugated iron sheds prevalent in the district, we clad the form in a rainscreen of rusted corrugated iron sheets, a rural camouflage of sorts.

The building is made largely of recycled materials and fittings, which the clients procured over the duration of the build.

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Homes, Travel, Videos

Italian Home Tours: Villa On Cliff In Sardinia (Video)

Video August 22, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Lying on a cliff that descends towards the crystalline sea of Sardinia, in the town of Maracalagonis in the Province of Cagliari, The property is divided into six apartments on four terraced levels, each with a private panoramic terrace, and has a total internal surface area of 680 sqm.

Two splendid panoramic swimming pools dominate over the sea. The prestigious complex is currently divided into five suites that share some spaces and services including swimming pools and magnificent terraces, a heated whirlpool tub, three barbecues and three access doors from which you reach a staircase leading to the cliff below and to the sea. . Fascinating and suggestive, this extraordinary property on the coast of Sardinia offers all the desirable comforts, in a landscape of rare beauty that is an integral part of the villa itself.