Langebaan Holiday Home

WORDS Biddi Rorke PHOTOS Jan Ras PRODUCTION Annemarie Meintjes


A double-volume holiday home on Langebaan Lagoon, which recently won a Cape Institute for Architecture (CIFA) Award for Architecture, is big on views and low on maintenance.

For Clara Dalkmann, memories of childhood holidays, playing with buckets and spades on Langebaan Beach, will now be recreated with her husband Benedikt and their own children in their new holiday home. The Dalkmanns, who live in Germany, tasked Cape Town architect Bettina Woodward of Open City Architects, who is also Clara’s sister, with the job of creating their elegant, fuss-free family getaway on the West Coast.

The house is situated on a steep, south-west-facing slope overlooking Langebaan Lagoon. A magnificent rocky outcrop directly in front of the site became an important consideration in the placement of the building.

A key requirement of the project brief was the provision of sunny outdoor entertainment spaces that would afford uninterrupted views of the lagoon and offer shelter from the notorious prevailing wind. The estate’s architectural guidelines dictated that the house had at least one pitched roof and only square windows, which Bettina masterfully incorporated into the design.