Christopher Beer's award-winning Town House in Cambridge, Waikato was verging on radical when it was built in 2016: designed for a local family, it was a compact, shadowy urban form in a small, provincial Waikato town better known for established trees, wide streets and bungalows. Here, he designed a house with multi-functional spaces on a small commercial site in the centre of town.
Beer’s design took a pocket of land and created an inward-facing, one-storey home, designed around two courtyards that subtly demarcate private and public areas. His thinking is both clear and nuanced. He framed the site with a solid brick wall; inside this frame, he punched three courtyards. Connecting them all is a spine, leading from front door, past bedrooms and courtyards to living spaces at the rear. It’s a delightfully layered home, which grows more private as you progress through it.
Despite the privacy, it’s open to the street, thanks to a gravelled courtyard, lightly screened with timber-and-steel gates which can rotate open or closed. Here, there’s a coffee machine and a hatch which swings open to the courtyard, along with a room that has variously functioned as gallery, studio, café and second living space.
As you move through the house, it opens and closes, stepping gently down the slope. Bedrooms open into the central grassed courtyard, and so does the living area; there’s an outdoor fire and established planting. In the open-plan living space, functions are subtly delineated – a sunken lounge creates a snug sitting space at one end, while tall cabinetry screens the kitchen proper from the dining table without closing it off completely.
Throughout, there’s a sense of retreat and calm; it’s pleasantly shadowy. Materials are limited, and robust – brick, fibre-cement and rough-sawn timber, now silvering off gracefully. Now for sale with with Sacha Webb of Bayleys, it's a remarkable opportunity to live in a contemporary classic, in the heart of a delightful small town.
90 Alpha Street, Cambridge
