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The house blends a historical Westcliff vernacular with a contemporary aesthetic. The veranda was purposefully detached from the house; the architects wanted nothing to detract from the link between garden and house. -
Bold horizontal lines inform the home’s minimal structure and instil a sense of calm. Thanks to the open-plan layout and generous use of glass, one can see right through the house from the front to the back yard. -
In the main bedroom, generous sliding doors offer visual and physical connection to the tree canopy and garden. The bed is from Mezzanine. -
The passage connecting the bedrooms gets ample natural light thanks to two bands of ribbon windows, one at floor level. -
Two Regardt van der Meulen sculptures make their presence known from almost anywhere in the house. In the dining room, Ton Ironica spindle-back chairs surround a Gregor Jenkin Turned table. -
The homeowner, a keen wine collector, stores his collection in a neat wine room off the kitchen. -
When the sliding doors are open, there is no barrier between the interior and the garden. The kitchen, which was designed by Easylife Kitchens, features sleek Neolith surfaces and bar stools from Spazio. -
Rather than arriving directly at the front door, guests enter the property by way of a slatted gate leading into a tranquil courtyard. -
The main bathroom features a Quatro bath from Eurotrend. -
Architects Grete van As and Johan Wentzel of W Design Architecture Studio.
PHOTOS Dook PRODUCTION Annemarie Meintjes WORDS Mila Crewe-Brown
The understated form of a modern Johannesburg home honours its setting: an established garden in the heart of Westcliff.
There’s something extra… It’s that spirit of a place,” Johan Wentzel says, trying to pinpoint the magic of Albert and Jo Anne Olivier’s Westcliff home. It is a stripped-down, refined abode with a dominant linear language that forges a connection with its immediate surrounds, and so too with the neighbourhood beyond its walls.
In terms of the home’s design, the act of subtracting is paramount, even more important than what has been added, and so it was that architects Grete van As and Johan Wentzel of W Design Architecture Studio reached a place where “it really becomes irrelevant what the house itself looks like”. Johan’s comment – not something you hear from an architect every day – alludes to the central role that context plays and its power over the built structure. In short, it’s everything.
Long before there was a house here, a larger property was sub divided and what was sold off was an extensive formal garden. So central was the garden to this project that everything has been created in support of it. Vast spans of glass serve to break down the divide between outside and inside; the ground floor has been left bare of dividing walls; and the bedrooms, all of them upstairs, capitalise on the view spied through the canopy of stinkwood trees.
The layout of the house is as refined as its aesthetic. A rectangle, gutted and transparent, rests on the ground, and a second level floats atop it. The hard-working parts of the house – scullery, storage, staff accommodation and garages – have been cleverly congregated in perpendicular bands on either side of the rectangle, leaving the core of the house free and supporting it structurally.
There was a lot of terracing to be done. Carving out one unified level for the home to rest on meant that a terrace had to be created between the street and house levels, with another one that serves as a boma.
Coming in off the street, you find yourself in a courtyard garden with a pond in the shade of an old jacaranda tree. It’s pertinent that your first glimpse of the house is from this oasis. “From the front door, most of what you see is the garden; the glass is coincidental,” Grete confirms.
Under the guidance of landscapers Patrick Watson and Ivan Roux, they retained all the large trees on the site and eschewed flower beds in favour of neatly clipped lawn. Rocks removed during construction became seating in the boma and along the back line under the trees. The exterior finishes reference the Westcliff vernacular, such as stone cladding, red brick and a pitched roof, a departure from W Design’s more common flat-roofed structures. Once inside, however, it’s all about streamlined surfaces and un obstructed views – decidedly modern.
Before there was a home, there was a garden; and so it continues in honour of its roots. “You can’t describe this; even a photograph couldn’t tell you how it feels. But once you do feel it, you’ll notice the difference between just any house and this one,” Johan says.
