Porotu Bach

Purotu – “Beautiful” – is a "bach" (holiday home) in New Zealand's Marlborough Sounds at the Bay of Many Coves. Quite often at the start of the design process, after we have had a chance to talk to the client and experience the site for the first time, we ask ourselves: should we do anything to the existing site, or should the beautiful natural environment remain as it is? At the Bay of Many Coves, one of the many Marlborough Sound jewels, our clients already had on the site quite an old cottage which was not in very good condition. Overall the site actually combines two individual lots with a total area of 49,632 square feet, with the building platform elevated about 32 feet above the sea level, at the lower level of the hilly site. The lovely positioned cottage was a single-story two bedroom building with a simple weatherboard finish and pitched Colorsteel roof. The dwelling was nicely nestled into the surrounding native bush. The client very much loved it and it was a difficult decision to actually remove it from the site and design something new in its place. While it was an emotionally difficult decision, it was ...