The Folly sits at the end of the clifftop garden overlooking inner Hauraki Gulf and Rangitoto Island.
At its simplest it is a garden shed, a place to stay and a place to sit under the trees and enjoy the sound and smell of the sea in front of a fire. This program is enlivened by the folly’s self-conscious reference to the informal corrugated iron shacks of the country’s early miners and gold prospectors.
The Corten steel exterior encloses a single room and a porch lined in rough sawn boarding, suggesting a modest simplicity. Yet all is not as it seems; concealed doors give onto a small kitchen and bathroom, a bed folds out into a carefully defined room, as well considered and appointed as the big house across the lawn.
- Architect: Cheshire Architects
- Photos: Thomas Seear-Budd
- Words: Qianqian