Bushveld dream

PHOTOS David Ross WORDS Jacqueline Myburgh Chemaly

Who doesn’t dream of living each day as if it was a holiday? Architect Thomas Gouws has designed a home where you will feel as if you are living in a five-star contemporary lodge.

It isn’t everyone’s privilege to build the house of their dreams. Most of us buy a previously owned home, make the structural changes we can afford and then set about perfecting our desired lifestyle with interior trimmings such as furniture and art.

But to stand on a piece of land, survey the landscape and view, and then dream up a house and build it – now that is a true luxury. When that piece of land is part of a visionary project to transform a piece of Gauteng into Highveld bushveld, well, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Inspired by the context

Pretoria architect Thomas Gouws says each building he designs is inspired almost entirely by its context and, in this case, the views. Nothing happens until he has stood on the ground where the house will stand and absorbed every aspect of the location.

This is exactly what happened at Serengeti, the Golf and Wildlife Estate 12kms northeast of OR Tambo International Airport, where Thomas was one of five leading Gauteng architects asked to design a show home to be displayed to the public when the estate went on sale. The other architects were Stauch Vorster (who designed two homes), Suzette Hammer of SBE Architects & Designers, Nico van der Meulen and Joehan Erasmus of Edmonds and Erasmus Design Consultancy.

Serengeti offers an enviable lifestyle, with 280 hectares of indigenous grasses, rehabilitated wetlands and a variety of buck and birdlife on your doorstep. This is no faux Tuscan monstrosity but an authentic nod to what Gauteng once looked like before the highways.

The estate includes an equestrian centre and 17kms of bridle paths through the conservation area. All this and the development’s proximity to the airport are attractions that are bound to make Serengeti popular among commuters who crave a real escape from the city when they get home.

Thomas’s brief was to create a home with a contemporary bush lodge atmosphere. He focused on the use of glass and stone to give the house an earthy feel, yet to open it up to the glorious bushveld surroundings. The resulting volume, the sheets of glass and the roof that seems to float in the sky at night would stop the average zebra dead in its tracks!

The site allocated for the house fans out towards the western horizon, so this is precisely the template Thomas used to design the double-storey home. The walls fan out from the point of entry, opening up the house to the expansive views. The lap pool is strategically placed as a focal point and is used to draw attention to the landscape beyond.

From the entrance foyer, the house splits in two with the left wing of the fan housing the living, entertaining and cooking area, and the right leading to the bedrooms. It is a neat categorisation that lends the house logic and simplicity.

Natural materials for an earthy look

In keeping with the bushveld theme, the home has been built using neutral-coloured materials, including stone, concrete, steel and timber. Paint finishes are all muted colours drawn from the natural surroundings. Madikwe slate was used for interior and exterior feature stone walls, while an Africote cement wash on the bedroom walls is warm and effective.

Throughout the house, Thomas has made use of large expanses of frameless glass to enhance the feeling of space and to give an uninterrupted view of the outside world. Even the pool “fence” is made of glass.

Two main bedrooms (the one upstairs mirrors another downstairs) share the living area’s dramatic view to the west, with over-sized sliding sunscreen shutters providing privacy and shade when required. Additional privacy is achieved by hidden automated block-out blinds (recessed in the ceilings). This allows for the best of both worlds: instantly transforming an open room with unrestricted views into a secluded retreat with the push of a button.

A pop of colour

All the earthy tones and wide open spaces could have become monotonous had Thomas not chosen to inject a sense of fun into the house with a bright red kitchen appearing to float in the centre of the living and entertaining area.

Designed by Thomas’ wife Sureen, who looks after the interior side of the business, the kitchen was manufactured by Lifestyle Projects with a red epoxy floor by Industrial Flooring Systems. The red touch pops up in the bathrooms too, where red tiled showers with red glass walls by Whipco are indulgent and sensual. Both showers in the main bedrooms lead outside, exactly as they should in any respectable bushveld lodge.

Sureen picked up on Thomas’s glass theme and used it in the bathrooms where 15mm glass slabs become simple yet sophisticated vanity tops.

Upstairs, the bathrooms and bedrooms link to a study, over a bridge through a forest of hanging light bulbs. Sureen was also responsible for furnishing the Serengeti show house and has used simple neutrals such as wood and white to complement the contemporary lodge feel.

Modern art by Pretoria artist Antoinette Uys includes a four-panelled sugar painting featuring hundreds of tiny hand-drawn ants. Her black-and-white paintings are hung throughout the house, adding to the modern bushveld mood.

Viewed from outside and in the evening, this house literally reaches for the stars, with the roof elevated from the walls through the use of glass windows beneath the eaves. It is a dream house for anyone wanting to live a sophisticated, African way of life.

Thomas Gouws Architects and Interiors 012 460 9867, tgarchitects.co.za

Serengeti Golf and Wildlife Estate 0861 396 396, serengeti.co.za