Wellington

I decided to walk home a different way this evening, and I found a pleasant surprise.

I remembered seeing this house before, but I couldn't remember where, maybe in a magazine, or in a lecture, but I had never realised it was just around the corner...
It's rather incredible in it's immediacy. In the other direction across the street is a magnificent vista across Wellington Harbour, yet it chooses to have these giant concrete panels like a shield. My mind wandered back to thermal conductivity and periodic heat oscillations... Or maybe it's what I'm always reading - about framing and revealing views. I think my previous lecturer would talk about 'caves' and 'nests' a lot here.

What is interesting is the dichotomy between itself and it's neighbour, a historic villa built romantically of wooden panels and neat symmetry. But they share similarities too, like in their relative mass, as can be seen from behind:

There's a strange conversation between these two that I enjoy. I think on reflection too, the villa is probably more 'closed' than the concrete house, with fewer and smaller windows compared with vast walls of glazing. I do wonder what it would be like to live in though.