Blackbird
This house in Grey Lynn was design by Rogan Nash Architects. From a distance the house sits like a blackbird atop a hill, watching and waiting (a nod to the legend of Maui and Tieke): with its black vertical sheet metal corrugate cladding and matching black aluminium joinery. The profile of the house is an elegant gable which peers through the surrounding urban landscape. This was an important trick to the design: how to shimmy itself into a small site in a much beloved Auckland suburb of Grey Lynn. It seems settled into its busy neighbourhood. It is different and in happy contrast to the other buildings which are all dancing together “Under a Surrey Crescent Moon”.