The family's passion for boating, their lakeside location, and a multi-generational use space, was RTA Studio's brief - resulting in a holiday house inspired by three boat-shed forms, sitting on the edge of Lake Taupō. Somewhat simple in form at first glance, the challenge was to create a house that captured some of the nostalgia of the old Taupō fishing baches, whilst offering a larger, modern, and more flexible programme.

As a result, three adjacent, seemingly separate rectangular forms run from street to lake-front, capped by steep, highly expressed gables. On the lake side, the sheds align as a three-peaked chevron, a zig zag of sorts that is both nautical and mountainous, architectural and graphic, grand yet sympathetic to the environment. Moving back from this facade the forms independently stagger, towards the main entrance, and ending with a tractor garage at the street side.

With hardly any fences between the row of houses here, the RTA team needed to find ways of bringing natural light into the central core of the house. This led them to create an internal courtyard accessible from both bedrooms and living - small yet complete with native planting, outdoor dining and a hot tub. Modular and highly flexible, timber screens can also be opened to connect the courtyard to the lake-front social spaces, or closed for more privacy and warmth during the winter months.

Inside the home, Aesthetic Consulting and Amy Gillespie Design collaborated to create an interior that radiates with light. Neutral fabrics, Tundra marble, greens and blues, were all chosen to complement the lake and the surrounding environment, with featured colours room to room inspired the family's significant art collection. Sophisticated and intelligently modern, the resulting space comfortably accommodates the three family generations, whilst paying homage to its former bach-era nostalgia.