Tocker House: A Simple Lifestyle in a Complex World.

The “Olde Beach” area of Waikanae is a tightly held group of baches and permanent homes located in a microclimate created by Kapiti Island, an hour north of Wellington. There is a French bakery, a couple of convenience stores, three excellent restaurants and a great beach. It is a very desirable area.

Architect John Tocker and Ali Tocker have owned a bach on a site at Olde Beach for many years and when it came time to look to a future with more leisure time it was an easy choice to demolish the modest holiday home and redevelop. John’s brief was to maximise the bach experience for the long term, using simple forms, universal design principles and a responsible level of sustainability.

The Tockers wanted to be able to accommodate guests, entertain and still operate the property with minimum effort, maximum privacy and optimal use of outside space. The guest accommodation is completely self-contained so that guests can operate relatively independently but there is also the potential to run it as a B&B in the future.

The design response has been a collaboration between John and Ali Tocker as having owned the property for 25 years they knew the site well and were able to plan in full knowledge of sun, wind, shade and open space attributes. There were advantages in having prior knowledge of what would work best on the site.

“We didn’t want to lose the privacy we had enjoyed at our previous seven-acre property which was
almost all in garden”, says John. “With our knowledge of the microclimate on the site – sun/wind directions etc – we knew we wanted a home where we could be outside as much as possible. We wanted the sun and didn’t want the cool southerly breeze (we don’t get much wind from the north or west) – hence the idea of building around a courtyard on the south and east sides. And we know the neighbours and didn’t want to affect them so chose a single storey option”.

The main structure arranged along the east and south edges of the rectangular site shelters a big outdoor room to the north and west. Extensive vitex timber decks provide the connectivity and three raised roof clerestories identify the main areas of the home while providing control of the interior environment.

As you approach from the street the site is screened by fencing and the garage so that entry is into a private outdoor space. Due to floodplain regulations the main floor of this single level home is raised approximately 500mmabove ground level. Access is up a ramp and along the decks with the guest suite separated from the main home by a conservatory. There is a large living/dining/kitchen with pantry and laundry plus study, spare bedroom, bathroom, WC and main bedroom suite.

This home is set approximately 200m back form the beachfront and is constructed to high environmental standards, with over code insulation throughout, thermally broken aluminium joinery, electrically operated high-level cross ventilation, low voltage LED lighting, on site stormwater management and rainwater harvesting that feeds laundry, WC flushing and hoses, together with a bore for irrigation.

The timber and steel frame of the home is clad with stained cedar and lined with plasterboard and ply, creating a calm interior for the artworks and a simple backdrop to the highly structured outdoor areas. True Oak roofing enabled a lower pitch than was achievable with other corrugated profiles. The low pitch of the roof allowed the expression of the interior spaces in the raised clerestories – one each for the guest area, living spaces and the main bedroom suite.

The outdoor areas of deck and patio are very harmonious with the structured design of the garden.

John and Ali wanted to be able to operate seamlessly between inside and outside and after years of mowing acres of grass – it took three hours on the ride-on at their previous home – John didn’t want to be limited by lawns which required mowing!

“Then there was the idea of the slightly random grid to order the garden, provide hard landscape and walkways plus allow variation with decorative plants, vegetables and fruit trees all mixed in together,” says John.

“The decks work in three ways; firstly as access to the house, secondly to provide a range of places to sit and relax, and thirdly as the link between house and garden. We were trying to blur the boundaries between inside/outside and garden/deck”.

The Tockers say their home is a calm, private oasis providing a simple lifestyle in a complex world.