WORDS Chris Reid PHOTOS Helene Sandberg, Supplied

Concrete is not a material that has historically kept good company with living things. It doesn’t bend, it doesn’t breathe, and it’s difficult to love at times. Which is exactly what makes Eco-Brutalism – the movement built on the marriage of raw concrete and rampant greenery – one of the more surprising design stories of recent years. Yet the more you sit with it, the more inevitable it feels.

As a reminder, Brutalism is an architectural style that’s known for its pragmatic yet monolithic design, as well as its heavy use of unfinished building materials. (The latter is the source of the name: a reference to the French term for raw concrete, béton brut.) Emerging in the 1950s, it was used for institutions such as universities, civic buildings and hospitals. Post-war governments valued its speed and cost-efficiency. City planners loved its scale. The public was, however, oft en less convinced.

Eco-Brutalism takes the same commitment to material honesty and pushes it into more verdant territory. In this approach, hard edges aren’t softened with paint or embellishments, but with plants. And not just a discreet flowerbed here and there: we’re talking climbing vines, living walls, rooftop gardens and indoor trees – the kind of foliage that sprawls and reaches and eventually makes a building look more like a terrarium than a monument. It feels like it should clash. But in the right hands, it produces something genuinely arresting: the hard and the soft, the permanent and the growing, locked together in an aesthetic that feels both radical and deeply natural.

Tough Love

A shift in attitudes to Brutalism has been brewing for some time. In London, the Barbican is the most instructive example. Once polarising, it is now the subject of a £231-million renewal programme approved in late 2025, with plans to restore its public spaces and conservatory ahead of its 50th anniversary. What has long been regarded as a cold, labyrinthine edifice has become one of the most desirable addresses in Europe. Architecture tours are sold out. The shop sells Brutalist memorabilia. The turnaround is remarkable – and it signals something broader.

As a style, Eco-Brutalism has some associations that make it quite apt for the current point in history. For a start, it has an innately socialist bent and forward-looking perspective. At a time when income disparity feels like it’s constantly increasing and retrogressive politics are on the rise, that is comforting. It also taps into the biophilia trend that defined the last decade or so. But where biophilia often feels surface-level, this turns the volume up and takes the greenery from an accent to an essential core. Also, in a world where the future will only get hotter and where cities will continue to densify, the smart use of greenery alongside concrete creates instant oases that people can appreciate regardless of their feelings on the aesthetic itself.

More than Skin Deep

With this type of design trend, there’s an implicit question: how much of the green thinking is substantial, and how much is purely symbolic? After all, Brutalism with a few plants added to it hardly feels like it warrants a whole new name. Added to that, concrete is a material that has come under significant scrutiny in recent years for its environmental impact.

What we’re seeing in this new iteration of Brutalism, however, is the “Eco” aspect going deeper. New, sustainable cement innovations by companies like Seratech are helping to sequester carbon in the build process. Architects intentionally include passive cooling and rainwater collection to reduce their environmental footprint. Plus, there’s an argument that this kind of anti-ostentatious design removes the unnecessary features that tend to add to a building’s overall impact.

Perhaps most importantly, this aesthetic is defined by permanence. In a world of fast design and disposable interiors, there is something quietly radical about creating buildings that are designed around function and intended to be scaffolding for nature. Brutalism in all its forms resists simple interpretation. But sometimes the most beautiful things are the ones that refuse to be easy.

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The post Concrete Jungle appeared first on Visi.

COMPILED BY Gina Dionisio PHOTOS Jamie Navarro and Fabian Martínez, Adam Letch, Mads Morgensen, Paris Brummer, Jaime Navarro

Touching on the leafy theme in VISI issue #144 and our trends guru Chris Reid’s deep-dive into Eco-Brutalism on page 76, these spaces from the VISI archives all marry rampant greenery with raw concrete. The hard edges of these homes and hotels aren’t softened with paint or embellishments, but with plants.

Puerto Escondido Hotel

“Hotel Terrestre is embedded in the landscape, as if it has been there for hundreds of years,” says architect Alberto Kalach of his otherworldly masterpiece, 25 kilometres northwest of resort town Puerto Escondido in the state of Oaxaca. Alberto knows a thing or two about this area. It may be a half-day’s drive from his Mexico City studio, Taller de Arquitectura X, but the pristine coastline famed for its surf is already home to a handful of his projects. So when approached by Carlos Couturier, co-founder of Mexican boutique hotel group Grupo Habita, to design a multi-sensorial property that redefines sustainable tourism, he jumped at the opportunity.

His environmentally sensitive approach to architecture has shaped several structures in the area, including Hotel Escondido and the award-winning restaurant Kakurega Omakase. These buildings hold their own in a landscape populated by hotspots like Casa Wabi, a retreat by starchitect Tadao Ando, and a permanent outdoor installation by artist Bosco Sodi.

Read the full feature on this Puerto Escondido Hotel.

Lanseria Eco-estate Home

“The site, sun and climate were integral to the design process and we drew inspiration from these elements,” says Enrico Daffonchio, who together with Leigh Maurtin designed the home with extensive input from the owners Lukas and Wendy van Niekerk.

The team were very familiar with the ecological guidelines of the estate as Daffonchio Architects had helped draft them. All of the properties are single storey, cut into the ground to minimise the impact on the horizon: The house is sunk to account for the natural ground level and slope of the estate, so each property has a view over the one in front of them.

This home, which is designed as a set of pavilions with deep overhangs, separated by a series of courtyards and green fingers that act as sheltered outdoor living spaces, is further camouflaged from its neighbours thanks to its roof gardens. The entire footprint is covered in native vegetation so that the boundary between the house and surrounding grasslands is almost indiscernible from above.

Read the full feature on this Lanseria Eco-estate Home.

Chilean House

It’s a house, but only in the broadest definition of the term, says co-owner Sofia von Ellrichshausen of this structure in the foothills of the Andes mountains in central Chile. She and fellow architect and artist Mauricio Pezo have been sharing their academic and artistic lives for the past two decades, and together head up the internationally renowned art and architecture studio Pezo von Ellrichshausen.

The couple built their new home in a secluded area surrounded by forest and freshwater channelled through small streams that come down from the mountains. Impressively big, it manages not to impose on its surroundings. “We call it a house, and it is our private home – but we also consider it a cultural centre, as it is meant for more than domestic use. It is a place for our creative expression, and ideally, it will live on beyond our lifetime to become a creative space for other humanist and creative people,” says Sofia.

Read the full feature on this Chilean House.

Waterkloof Ridge House

“A friend once said to us, ‘You don’t ever choose the easy way, do you?’” say Ryk and Irma Coetzee, the owners of this hillside home in Waterkloof Ridge in Pretoria. But then, as the saying goes, nothing good comes easy.

Ryk and Irma bought their house – built in the late 1970s and empty for some time, “with no kitchen, horrific plumbing and uncertain electrical wiring” – with the intention to renovate it. What captured their imagination was the spectacular view, say their architects, Grete Van As and Johan Wentzel of W Design Architecture Studio. The house is perched on the steep, rocky slopes of a ridge, with the ground dropping away dramatically below it; and despite its suburban setting, it felt wild and untouched.

“We semi-renovated it just enough to make it liveable,” say Ryk and Irma. Then, they lived there for five years before deciding on a more substantial renovation that would ultimately transform the entire hillside site. They wanted to make the most of the view while preserving the original flow of the house. They were anxious that it should “retain the magic”, but they were also drawn to the notion of a suburban farmhouse. They were already halfway there, having arrived with a menagerie of cats, dogs, rabbits and geese. Their wish list included vegetable gardens, an olive grove and a greenhouse.

Read the full feature on this Waterkloof Ridge house.

Casa TO in Mexico

The port of Puerto Escondido is an escape. Travellers from all over the world retreat to its golden beaches and waves, to walk, meditate and help release turtles in local sanctuaries.

On the southern tip of town, Casa TO has added an element of thoughtful luxury to this tiny utopia. Completed in August 2022, the hotel was designed by renowned architect Ludwig Godefroy. Working to a very succinct brief of “nine rooms, and lots of freedom”, he and his team have married tradition and the avant-garde in a unique structure, surrounded by a tranquil natural setting.

Made largely of concrete, the materiality of the build was of the utmost importance to Ludwig. “My search for simplicity has led me to create clean and abstract architecture, composed exclusively of mass materials such as concrete, wood and stone. All these materials look better under the action of time,” he says.

Casa TO takes inspiration from myriad sources, including Oaxacan temples, where enclosed spaces create a sensory experience. There’s also a nod to the reticulated pattern of two historical hydraulic works: the 6th-century Basilica Cistern in Istanbul, and the Hornsey Wood Reservoir in Finsbury Park, London, built in the late 1800s. In relation to these references, Ludwig says that his “architecture is willing to get rid of the unnecessary, to concentrate on the very essence of the structure of the building, offering a contemporary reinterpretation”.

Read the full feature on Casa TO.

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The post 5 Eco-Brutalist Spaces Where Raw Concrete Meets Nature appeared first on Visi.

COMPILED BY Gina Dionisio PHOTOS Dook; Jan Ras; Paris Brummer; Warren Heath; Greg Cox

From Brutalist masterpieces to modernist marvels, these homes channel the spirit of the past in bold, unexpected ways. Whether it’s sculptural forms, vintage palettes or era-defining details, each space is a celebration of retro design at its most striking.

Linksfield Ridge Home

Polish-born architect Frank Jarrett left a rather eclectic collection of landmarks across the city of Johannesburg, his works ranging from the offices of Chancellor House – the original home of Mandela and Tambo Attorneys – to the slightly less discreet Gold Reef City theme park development. In 1951, Jarrett was commissioned to build a private residence on the Linksfield Ridge for Greek timber merchant Manoussos Broulidakis, who clad the interior of the modern stone, brick and terrazzo home in glowing floor-to-ceiling wood. Thankfully, many of these features remain today. The front door is Burmese teak, the floors are covered in gleaming parquet. But perhaps most breathtaking of all are the richly varnished panels of sandblasted pine that line the eastern wall between the living area and the kitchen, and which enclose a Bond-worthy staircase leading up to the home’s bedrooms.

Read the full story on this Linksfield Ridge Home.

Modernist Home in Bishopscourt

Keurbos manages the clever trick of being both conspicuous and concealed. It stands out in the architectural sense: this Gawie Fagan-designed Modernist bungalow-style home bears no resemblance to the Neo-Georgian squares and contemporary concrete rectangles that occupy Bishopscourt’s streets. And it’s hidden both physically and conceptually: built on a steep slope, Keurbos sits well below street level on a verdant hillside. It’s a discrete structure in a discrete location, accessed via a descending panhandle driveway that requires very specific directional instructions to find. If you know anything about the late architect’s approach, you’ll know that’s all intentional. This giant of South African Modernist architecture had sense of place as one of his key design principles, and his structures all show a sensitivity to the landscape – Keurbos nestles into the hill, rather than dominating it.

Read the full story on this Modernist home in Bishopscourt.

Minimalist Joburg Home

Edoardo Villa’s journey had been a long one: from Italy to South Africa as a prisoner of war, and from classic realism to abstract modernism as an artist. After his release, he chose to stay on in Johannesburg and for a time lived and worked at the home of artist Douglas Portway in Kew, a suburb on the eastern fringe of the city.

Villa soon became a prominent figure in the local art world and in the great surge of creative innovation that lit up the middle of the century. He was able to buy the Portway house in 1959, and in 1968 commissioned Ian McLennan to design a house for him on the same property, giving him no brief and a very small budget.

Read the full story on this minimalist Joburg home.

Fresnaye Family Home

There’s something altogether contrary about designing a Fresnaye house that presides over the Atlantic Seaboard without giving a second thought to the views. But when it comes to this dazzling home, there’s no desire to follow the rules. You’ll find soft curves where you’d expect sharp right angles and, while you’re cleverly protected from onlookers, glass-walled neighbours find themselves exposed.

“They didn’t care a damn for the views,” says architect Robert Silke of Robert Silke & Partners about the homeowners’ brief. “It had to be a functioning family home – that it has views is a bonus.” But take one glance at the bleached-white, three-storey structure that looks a little like an abstract jigsaw puzzle from the outside and you know there’s more to this house than just a family home. Robert insists that “it’s a pragmatic family home, not a showpiece house”, then a moment later gleefully proclaims, “It’s a bit like a spaceship arrived in Fresnaye.” Then again, this architect has quite the contrary reputation, shunning the dominant vernacular for edgy takes on Art Deco and early minimalism that feel at once retro and fresh.

Read the full story on this Fresnaye family home.

Waterkloof House

A few years ago, when a handful of curious architects made a pilgrimage to this spectacular 1970s house in Waterkloof in Pretoria, one described it as a “time capsule”. “We’ve lived here for 48 years,” says its owner. As a result, the architecture and the furniture are perfectly preserved, looking just as she envisioned them nearly five decades ago. Everything has been meticulously maintained, and the house has an almost otherworldly, hallucinogenic quality that leaves you feeling transported in time.

It was designed by architect Petrus Paulus (Piet) van den Berg, a Pretoria architect who, while prolific, hugely versatile and tirelessly experimental over his 50-year career, seems little known outside of local architectural circles. “Piet was a great friend of ours,” says the owner. She and her husband simply wanted “something different” when they engaged him to do the design.

Read the full story on this Waterkloof House.

Art Deco Hotel

You can’t miss Tropicana – at least on paper. As you can see here, the striking hotel is a dreamy piece of confection that you could as much take a bite out of as step inside. Among its mostly monochromatic neighbours, the light-blue-and-pink Tropicana looks like it’s crowned by a permanent rainbow and staffed by My Little Ponies. Except it’s deceptively hard to spot in the flesh.

Rising from a small triangular plot of land where Sea Point’s Kloof Road forks, Tropicana’s pale blue-meets-pastel pink manages a trick of hiding in plain sight. Along with its curves and soft lines, the blue half of its exterior merges with the sea and sky for most of the day, while the pink folds it into the blush of sunset. Robert Silke, founder of Robert Silke & Partners – the architects of the building – describes it as having “an almost holographic appearance, like you’re not sure if it’s pink or blue or silver”. It’s genius… and a fortuitous stroke of luck

Read the full story on Tropicana.

Renovated Waterkloof Home

The five-bedroom house is located within a large garden in Waterkloof, a hilltop suburb to the east of Pretoria with views over the city and the Magaliesberg mountains. Although the property is not listed as a heritage resource by City of Tshwane, and is younger than 60 years so is yet to be protected by the National Heritage Council, it has been recognised for its strong architectural significance.

W design architecture studio worked with heritage consultant Nicholas Clarke to illustrate and justify all aspects of the renovation and allay concerns by local architects and the Pretoria Institute for Architecture who regard the property as being a strong representation of Pretoria Architecture.

Read the full story on this renovated Waterkloof home.

Kenilworth Home

You know, I counted every single brick in this house,” says architect Adèle Naudé Santos, smiling, as she stands looking around the main bedroom of the first house she ever designed – a solid Modernist four-bedroomer completed in 1967 and situated in a narrow, leafy avenue in Cape Town’s Kenilworth.

She may not actually be joking. Their modular layout, visible through the unplastered whitewashed walls, means you could conceivably measure the dimensions of the house brick by brick. US-based Adèle may now be a world-renowned architect, but back then she was just starting her career, and this was her first-ever build. And as if the stakes weren’t high enough, the client was her father, the late architect Hugo Naudé.

Read the full story on this Kenilworth home.

Forest Town House

The Colemans are not your average suburbanites – although chatting to the humble Audrey Coleman, now 90, you wouldn’t guess it. She and her late husband, Max, were active human-rights advocates during the apartheid years, both working for the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee, with Audrey also a long-standing and celebrated member of the legendary human- rights organisation, Black Sash.

House Coleman has major cred too. Built in the early 1980s, it’s a masterpiece of clean lines and geometric shapes and, though tailor-made to be its owners’ retirement home, it’s also a piece of South African design history. “Our son Colin was a student at Wits University and insisted that Pancho Guedes was the only person for the job,” says Audrey of their choice of architect.

Read the full story on this Forest Town house.

Pinelands Home

There’s a certain witchiness to Robert Silke‘s new family home in the Cape Town suburb of Pinelands. A darkly dramatic front gate framed by a brick archway reading Caverswall opens onto a narrow garden path, which leads you to a house that’s equal parts imposing and intriguing, with a steeply pitched, clay-tiled roof, spiral chimneys and brickwork finish – all in the same burnt-honey shade. “It’s basically a gingerbread house, right?” says Robert, taking in the facade of the 1938 Arts and Crafts Revival structure he shares with partner Gideon and their one-year-old daughter Lilith.

“Pinelands was established in the 1920s, when there was a big push around the world for an approximation of English country living,” says Robert. “There was a planner in the UK called Ebenezer Howard, who invented the suburb, which he originally called a garden city. The idea gained global traction in reaction to the Spanish flu – people felt that the way they lived in cities wasn’t healthy. Pinelands was actually the third garden city in the world.”

Read the full story on this Pinelands home.

Johannesburg House

What Toni Twidale wanted even more than a house was to live among the trees. “I wanted to see green all the time,” says Toni, who owns this home with her partner Graeme. “I wanted the outside in.” And so they decided to build a house that would, more than anything, be about the site.

The couple enlisted the help of architect Gregory Katz, known locally for his creative, experimental and often unconventional approach. Toni wanted to keep all the indigenous trees; Gregory’s brief, therefore, became something of a mathematical puzzle around fitting the dimensions of a house between the trees. In the end, he settled on two long, slim “bars”, with alternating strips of open space on either side and between them for the driveway, central courtyard and swimming pool. The two wings are connected by what Gregory calls an “umbilical cord” – a glazed corridor that steps down slightly with the slope of the site. The branches of the trees reach up and over a flat concrete roof, which is planted with wavy grass, essentially lifting what would have been on the ground up a level, and adding to the greenery.

Read the full story on this Johannesburg house.

Modernist Durban Home

On first encounter, House Shaw is brutally simple: a series of three-dimensional boxes, positioned beside and on top of one another on a long, triangular site cut into one of the steep slopes that characterise Durban’s forested university suburb. It is made of face brick, concrete, louvre windows, shutters and a bit of aluminium; no need for paint, wallpaper, air conditioning – not even curtains.

The house belongs to Colleen Wygers, who lived here with her late husband, fellow architect Paul Wygers. Sadly, Paul passed away shortly after we photographed the house; with Colleen’s permission, we’ve included his observations from that interview.

Paul liked to describe the home as Modernism morphing the heritage Durban veranda home – and, when it went onto the market in 2013, the couple bought it within hours of their first viewing. Designed by Hallen and Dibb Architects in the 1960s, it had been commissioned by legal luminary Douglas Shaw. “Douglas Shaw was sitting in an Eames chair in the lounge,” recalled Paul. “We chatted briefly about art and architecture. I don’t think he wanted to leave.”

Read the full story on this Modernist Durban home.

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The post 12 Retro Gems That Celebrate the Best of Mid-Century Cool appeared first on Visi.

WORDS Graham Wood PHOTOS Paris Brummer PRODUCTION Annemarie Meintjies

A few years ago, when a handful of curious architects made a pilgrimage to this spectacular 1970s house in Waterkloof in Pretoria, one described it as a “time capsule”. “We’ve lived here for 48 years,” says its owner. As a result, the architecture and the furniture are perfectly preserved, looking just as she envisioned them nearly five decades ago. Everything has been meticulously maintained, and the house has an almost otherworldly, hallucinogenic quality that leaves you feeling transported in time.

It was designed by architect Petrus Paulus (Piet) van den Berg, a Pretoria architect who, while prolific, hugely versatile and tirelessly experimental over his 50-year career, seems little known outside of local architectural circles. “Piet was a great friend of ours,” says the owner. She and her husband simply wanted “something different” when they engaged him to do the design.

And they certainly got it. Unassuming from the street, the house is on a steep slope. On arrival, visitors drive onto a concrete slab – essentially a rooftop motor court – which wraps around the building, leading to a separate exit. Distinctively shaped fibreglass canopies draw the eye to sweeping views of the city. Brutalist-style columns and heavy wooden doors with ceramic handles hint at the wonders beyond. A concrete spiral staircase descends through a triple-volume atrium filled with a waterfall, a koi pond and a tropical indoor jungle, where palm trees tickle the roof. The ground level features a small aviary built into the columns, and coffered ceilings are a reminder of the raw materiality of the structure. “As you go down, it gets cooler and cooler,” the owner notes.

Rooms float into the atrium on various levels. Light filters down from above, while expansive double-storey windows open to panoramic city views on one side, and a cycad and clivia garden on the other, blurring the line between indoors and out. At the base of the atrium, railway sleepers pave the floor, extending into the hardscaping outside. The owner explains that, originally, the atrium was designed to preserve existing thorn trees on the site, but over time, these were replaced with plants better suited to an indoor environment, including delicious monsters, philodendrons and bamboo palms.

Peter Howard – Piet’s son and a town planner who worked in Piet’s studio for many years – recalls visiting the site prior to construction. He highlights some of Piet’s other Pretoria buildings, including the Yorkcor Park building on Watermeyer Street (with its built-in planters for cycads), Hotel 244 in Arcadia, and Hantra (now Hantra Student Accommodation) and the Totem West apartment building in Sunnyside. The owner also remembers visiting Piet’s Pyramids Motel in Van Reenen.

Peter adds that some of Piet’s formative early work was at the campus of the University of Zululand and the University of Limpopo (then Turfloop). In the University of Zululand’s architecture, he combined Brazilian-inspired Brutalism with local vernacular elements. One of his later projects there – a multipurpose hall “big enough to host a tennis match”, Peter says – features a 70-metre-tall geodesic dome that combines cutting-edge engineering with the influence of traditional grass huts.

Brise-soleils – used for sun protection as well as ventilation – became a signature feature of Piet’s designs. He didn’t exactly mimic Brazilian aesthetics; rather, he incorporated locally influenced patterns drawn from Zulu basketry and beadwork into the brickwork.

Piet’s own 1960s Pretoria home in Lynnwood, built around the same time as the university campuses, was internationally published and is one of the better-known examples of his work. In that instance, he refined the floating brise-soleil panels and Tropical Modernist ideas with greater elegance and luxury. More than a decade later, this Waterkloof house revisited those ideas, emphasising the New Brutalist influence and a tropical influence quite possibly inspired by the visits Piet and the owners made to Mauritius and the Seychelles, and combining sculptural concrete forms with a new kind of extravagance and whimsy.

The house includes a squash court inside and a tennis court outside. “We were very keen on sports,” the owner says. The swimming pool features a mosaic-topped swim-up braai area with submerged barstools – another quirk of tropical island resort architecture.

Inside, many of the furnishings are integrated, including a circular bed in the main suite. Elsewhere, the architecture almost mimics the landscape: on the ground level, lounges and dining areas are defined by changes in floor height. Steps morph into seating, and seats transition into counters. The owner personally selected all furnishings. “I knew exactly what I liked,” she says.

A final whimsical touch is hidden in the hollow columns: brick relief sculptures of monkeys, representing “hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil”. The owner says that they were designed to conceal pipes and services; Peter thinks they may have also been intended as a blessing on the house. Recollections may differ, but the truth is, all the walls of this house are a blessing. What a magical experience it must be to have lived here for half a century…

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The post Waterkloof House appeared first on Visi.

COMPILED BY Gina Dionisio PHOTOS Dook; Mads Morgensen; Alan Jensen; Jack Lovel & Robert Frith; Adam Letch; Kyle Morland; Elsa Young; Lar Glutz/Bureaux

From a Buffelsbaai beachside escape to an architecturally bold Dullstroom weekend retreat, homes stand as testaments to their material: concrete. These local and international homes from the VISI Archives highlight the enduring appeal of concrete in contemporary design.

Buffelsbaai Home

Family holiday homes evoke images of blissful summer days filled with nothing but hours spent on the beach and sipping homemade (somewhat punchy) lemonade to keep cool. And this Buffelsbaai beachside gem most certainly lives up to that billing, ticking all the boxes for what’s required to ensure that the Ferreiras’ getaways are always restful, invigorating and, quite simply, a holiday.

An existing structure was demolished on this third-generation property to make way for a new home for the family. Richly reflective of the opportunities and constraints of the landscape, the design of the house was inspired by the sea and the milkwood forest that surrounds it.

As lead architect Guillaume Pienaar of Pinard Architecture says, the house skilfully combines “natural materials, colours and textures: natural timber, off-shutter concrete, rope and very rough-textured plaster that, over time, will disappear into the milkwood forest and fade in colour”, with an eye-catching structural design that will remain relevant and inspiring for many more generations.

Read the full story on this Buffelsbaai home.

Westcliff Ridge Home

It’s rare in this country that homeowners inherit a building of distinct architectural heritage, especially in a city as young as Johannesburg. So when husband and wife Silvio Rech and Lesley Carstens, of leading architecture studio Silvio Rech & Lesley Carstens Adventure Architecture, spied the late-1950s house at the dead-end of their lane in Westcliff’s uppermost reaches, they kept a beady eye on its movements.

“What I liked about it is that it’s so simple… We’ve been over-cluttering everything,” remarks Silvio. Still, dense overgrowth concealed the view entirely, and there were those who advised the couple to simply knock it down. Architecture devotees, however, favoured retaining its roots as an American Bungalow, and when they discovered that there was, in fact, a view beyond the trees, they did what any architect would do: they respected the building’s heritage.

Read the full story on the Westcliff Ridge Home.

Chilean House

It’s a house, but only in the broadest definition of the term, says co-owner Sofia von Ellrichshausen of this structure in the foothills of the Andes mountains in central Chile. She and fellow architect and artist Mauricio Pezo have been sharing their academic and artistic lives for the past two decades, and together head up the internationally renowned art and architecture studio Pezo von Ellrichshausen.

The couple built their new home in a secluded area surrounded by forest and freshwater channelled through small streams that come down from the mountains. Impressively big, it manages not to impose on its surroundings. “We call it a house, and it is our private home – but we also consider it a cultural centre, as it is meant for more than domestic use. It is a place for our creative expression, and ideally, it will live on beyond our lifetime to become a creative space for other humanist and creative people,” says Sofia.

Read the full story on this Chilean Home.

Monaghan Farm House

This house in Monaghan Farm in Lanseria, on a beautiful spot overlooking a bend in the Jukskei River, began with a bold, Brutalist architectural idea – but the result is an incredibly subtle, sensitive response to its setting. The owners, Wendy and Lukas van Niekerk wanted a home made entirely of steel and raw, exposed concrete, and this spectacular plot of land offered them the chance to build from scratch. Lukas, an engineer, is a huge fan of the work of 20th-century Italian architect Carlo Scarpa, who is famous for his sensitive use of concrete as well as experiments with concrete and steel – and the Van Niekerks’ architect, Enrico Daffonchio, went to school in Scarpa’s hometown of Venice in Italy. The fates had aligned.

Despite what Enrico refers to as its “strong architectural language”, the house they designed together is nestled into the landscape and, when viewed from higher up the hill, is practically invisible (helped by the green roofs planted with endemic grasses to recreate the landscape it’s built on). It is, quite literally, sunken into the landscape to keep its presence unobtrusive.

You descend from street level to the front door via steps that lead to a path through a courtyard. The bold simplicity of the forms – the slim, straight lines of the roof and overhangs – belie the complexity of the way the house is knitted into its setting, with courtyards and “green fingers” all around bringing the landscape and vegetation up to and between the rooms.

Read the full story on the Monaghan Farm House.

Dullstroom Weekend Home

There’s a defining principle in modern architecture called “truth to materials”. Its aim is to celebrate the intrinsic qualities of a material without corruption, laying bare character and construction. The Fall, a week­end home outside Dullstroom, pays homage to this notion with its audacious use of concrete and its bare­bones appeal.

“A shelter that sits crouched, backed up against the steep hill,” is how architect Paul Oosthuizen describes it. He says “shelter” as a throwback to his time spent studying the site, in awe of the thunderous water crashing into the gorge. The house was to be a refuge in direct conversation with the waterfall. “The hexahedron formation of the rock, eroded with soft edges, became a compelling navigator. I extruded these shapes out of the land; strung together like a spine, they became alive.”

“I did a double take when Paul showed us his initial drawings,” says owner Anthony Hare. He and his wife Robyn have since fallen in love with the house, which has stirred mixed reactions in the Dullstroom community. The farm has been in Anthony’s family since the 1960s and is now planted with 3 hectares of cherries. “I grew up here as a young boy on fishing trips,” he recalls nostalgically. His yearn­ing to create something exceptional on the same land has nagged for years

Read the full story on this Dullstroom weekend home.

Maastricht Loft

Create a comfortable family loft” was the brief given to Dax and Joyce Roll of Nicemakers. At least, that was the easy part of it; the rest requested “a home where furniture designer Jean Prouvé meets interior designer Joseph Dirand; where Bauhaus architecture meets the glamour of the Chrysler Building; where interiors specialists Roman and Williams meet the series Mad Men; and where minimal architect Peter Zumthor meets The Wolf of Wall Street’s Jordan Belfort”. It must’ve made for an interesting mood board for the Amsterdam- based interior design studio – but in their favour was a portfolio of successfully completed projects that includes a city-centre canal house, a country farmhouse, a 19th-century mansion, a 1960s bungalow, and the re-styling of De L’Europe hotel in Amsterdam.

The starting point for this latest project was a concrete loft in the south of the Netherlands, with a roof terrace providing great views of Maastricht’s city centre. “Every new project starts with freedom – freedom of thought and inspiration – and a story or an atmosphere,” says Dax. “That is our approach – and luckily in this instance, given their briefing, also that of our clients.” Their clients were a couple who had grown up in Maastricht. The building, originally designed as living space for local nurses – each window belonged to a single room furnished with a simple bed, desk and wardrobe – was later also used as office space. When it was first put on the market, the couple moved quickly, buying one of the apartments on the ninth floor and both apartments on the 10th floor. Along with this combination came a roof terrace with 360-degree panoramic views and, as an extra, a secret observatory/sky lounge above that.

Read the full story on this Maastricht loft.

Roscommon House

The clients wanted a family home with “a strong sense of belonging” that would age with grace, remaining relevant and highly versatile through all stages of life. To realise this brief, Neil looked to the history of the site’s suburb for direction – the town’s planning, nearby architecture and the ideals of the original subdivision.

Simplistic in form, the house spans a singular floor, with the exterior boasting a careful contrast of concrete blocks – some bold and square, others sculpted into elongated oval shapes that add an organic feel to the rawness. Materials chosen for their ability to age like family heirlooms dominate the space in an arresting juxtaposition of wood, marble, terrazzo, velvet, timber and glass. Outdoor furniture includes the Basket chair, designed by Nanna and Jørgen Ditzel and the Boma collection, designed by Rodolfo Dordoni, both created for international outdoor furniture brand Kettal.

Read the full story on the Roscommon House.

Lanseria Eco-estate Home

The site, sun and climate were integral to the design process and we drew inspiration from these elements,” says Enrico Daffonchio, who together with Leigh Maurtin designed the home with extensive input from the owners Lukas and Wendy van Niekerk.

The team were very familiar with the ecological guidelines of the estate as Daffonchio Architects had helped draft them. All of the properties are single storey, cut into the ground to minimise the impact on the horizon: The house is sunk to account for the natural ground level and slope of the estate, so each property has a view over the one in front of them.

This home, which is designed as a set of pavilions with deep overhangs, separated by a series of courtyards and green fingers that act as sheltered outdoor living spaces, is further camouflaged from its neighbours thanks to its roof gardens. The entire footprint is covered in native vegetation so that the boundary between the house and surrounding grasslands is almost indiscernible from above.

Read the full story on this Lanseria eco-estate home.

Paarl House

You’d be forgiven for inferring that the domed column that punctuates Pine Concrete House pays poetic tribute to Paarl Rock, the gigantic granite outcrop looming in its background. “You’ll have to talk to my dad about the metaphors of this house,” says a smiling Johannes Berry, who co-founded Brussels-based architectural firm Sugiberry with his wife Mayu Takasugi in 2016.

Fortuitous as the architectural echo is, the concrete-and-wood residence’s design was informed by a set of logical principles that Johannes and Mayu work according to,rather than any visual reference.“We like to consider the potential in what already exists,” he explains. In the case of Pine Concrete House, what existed was the double-storey home of Johannes’s parents, Roland and Elmine. “The initial brief from them was to build a double garage – but like most projects, it grew,” says Johannes. “They’re getting older, and because of the size of their house, we proposed renovating it so it could ultimately be split into three self-contained parts – a top half, a bottom half and an extension – so they’d still be able to live there, but rent out the two other spaces.”

Although Johannes and Mayu initially had wood and canvas in mind as the predominant building materials for the extension, the area of land they had earmarked needed to be excavated. “It’s a bit of an engineering feat to build with wood underground because of the moisture, and we didn’t want to focus on technical statements,” says Mayu. “The decision to build with concrete is really what started the design. We asked: what is concrete? How do you make concrete? Okay, you need formwork. What is formwork? If you use wood to make formwork, what happens to it afterwards? Can you not reuse it? It’s a logic of being considerate and aware of things.”

Read the full story on this Paarl House.

Llandudno Home

There are 360 degrees. Why stick to one?” said the late architect Zaha Hadid – and this philosophy could well describe Mica and Marcel Angel’s Llandudno home. At its entrance, concrete slabs suspended over a body of water deliver you to a pair of angular, concrete planes that defy gravity as they slant casually skywards. The entrance is straddled by two linear concrete boxes, one of which is home to an outsized sculptural staircase that runs the full height of the double-volume space. It’s an astonishing first impression.

But then this home is designed to marry not just the disparate aesthetic predilections of its owners – an aspiring clinical psychologist and a racing driver – but also the splendour of its setting. Set on giant granite boulders between Llandudno and Sandy Bay, it was designed by M&B Architects’ Christo Botha in response to its spectacular surrounds. United by a passion for fast cars – and having worked together previously on commercial projects – Christo had a good idea of Marcel’s love for contemporary, modern architecture. However, his challenge lay in incorporating that with Mica’s preference for a more sculptural, eclectic, lived-in feel, as well as her brief for a space that could accommodate the five children (from 28 to 11 years old) they share between them. And of course, their three dogs, Sishi, Valentino and Paris.

Read the full story on this Llandudno home.

Salt Rock Home

It’s a great house to wake up in every morning, and a great house to dwell in,” says interior designer and artist Lisa Twyman of her home. “It makes you feel free, positive, motivated, excited.”

Lisa and husband Will Haynes fell in love with the plot situated in Salt Rock, on the Indian Ocean coastline north of Durban, because of its geography – so much so that the build became very much about the garden. “We did not want to impose on it or mess up the flow of it too much,” she says. “During the first few years that we lived here, any extra budget was spent on the garden and planting.”

The key principle for Lisa and Will was that the house needed to become a part of the landscape. This meant including elements such as a ground-floor living area that opens up completely to the outdoors, allowing the spaces to be opened or enclosed as required. This “blurred boundary” – as Lisa describes it – between interior and exterior is further enhanced by the fully open-plan nature of the living, dining and kitchen spaces, as well as the application of simple, low-maintenance materials such as unadorned off-shutter concrete, and the balau wood used for cladding and screening where necessary.

Read the full story on this Salt Rock home.

Contemporary Pretoria Home

Ever since they were a newlywed couple, Albert and Adéle Nieuwenhuys had been dreaming up a vision for their perfect home – a space with a sense of openness enveloped in raw concrete, steel and glass with generous expanses of double volume.

They found the perfect site in the heart of Pretoria – the first step to realising their dream – with the most incredible views across the Faerie Glen Nature Reserve. But it wasn’t until they met with architect André Eksteen from Earthworld Architects that they knew their vision would finally become reality. “At Earthworld Architects we believe that the architect’s primary role is that of mediator between people and the landscape they live in,” says André. “We were therefore incredibly excited by the owners’ challenging brief for this unique site, because we knew from the start it would require pushing creative boundaries.”

True to his word, the main design concept for the house is a complete contradiction in terms. “I wanted to preserve the site’s intimate connection with the nature reserve by designing the house as an airy, lightweight shelter that simply floats over the indigenous landscape – with the structure being nothing more than a protective shell that can adapt from day to day according to the needs of the family,” André explains.

Read the full story on this contemporary Pretoria home.

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The post 12 Concrete Homes Redefining Modern Living appeared first on Visi.

WORDS Gudrun Henrysdóttir PHOTOS AND PRODUCTION Mads Morgensen

It’s a house, but only in the broadest definition of the term, says co-owner Sofia von Ellrichshausen of this structure in the foothills of the Andes mountains in central Chile. She and fellow architect and artist Mauricio Pezo have been sharing their academic and artistic lives for the past two decades, and together head up the internationally renowned art and architecture studio Pezo von Ellrichshausen.

The couple built their new home in a secluded area surrounded by forest and freshwater channelled through small streams that come down from the mountains. Impressively big, it manages not to impose on its surroundings. “We call it a house, and it is our private home – but we also consider it a cultural centre, as it is meant for more than domestic use. It is a place for our creative expression, and ideally, it will live on beyond our lifetime to become a creative space for other humanist and creative people,” says Sofia.

The house gets its name – Luna – from a traditional Chilean rodeo arena known as the medialuna. These circular structures about 45 metres in diameter are made of wooden boards, and Luna pays homage to its inspiration via the 45m x 45m central courtyard. The square-plan building combines a modern take on minimalist and Brutalist architecture, with exposed concrete structure as its focal point. Despite its imposing materiality, it’s a permeable building, with rectangular and circular skylights and window cutouts filling the rooms with light.

The structure consists of different sections, each with a private courtyard that provides access to a series of larger courtyards – much like a cloister. The idea is to create private spaces while maintaining a sense of being in the same house, allowing everyone to feel connected to the home’s other occupants.

“I compare it to living in an apartment building, where everyone has their own space but shares the building with others, so in a way you are living together,” explains Mauricio.

Part of the duo’s way of exploring architecture has been about blurring lines, and diluting the difference between the artificial and the natural. They worked on cultivating a relationship with nature and were mindful of the surrounding area by building the house around existing trees. “For us, it is not only about creating functional spaces in the pragmatic sense, by saying we need bedrooms, a library, studios for painting and carpentry,” says Sofia. “It’s also about our ethos with regards to nature. Because of that, most spaces are not really indoor spaces – they are outdoor rooms with intermediate courtyards.”

“We use architecture to articulate what is already there, and to test how space can induce sensory experiences and feelings of recognition,” says Mauricio. “For us, architecture is about perceiving and understanding distance – which is one of the most concrete manifestations of time.”

Luna is the third house that Sofia and Mauricio have built for themselves, and it shares similarities with their previous homes, including ateliers and a studio in the form of a tower. The scale and location, however, are vastly different. “We both grew up in the southern parts of South America, with a strong connection to the wilderness,” explains Sofia. “Since we met, we had this romantic idea of a voluntary exile; a return to a more elemental way of life. This property is at the frontier of the valley and the mountain landscape. Within this picturesque setting, the building articulates all the possible spaces we had in mind to allow us to continue our work of writing, drawing, painting and imagining architecture.” | pezo.cl

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The post Luna Modular: Chilean House in the Foothills of the Andes appeared first on Visi.

If you’re building up a library of design tomes, three magisterial publications by Phaidon that trace the evolving examination of Brutalist Architecture are a must.

THIS BRUTAL WORLD by Peter Chadwick

About seven years ago, new books began popping up, re-evaluating one of the most divisive architectural movements of the 20th century: Brutalism. Leading the charge was 2016’s This Brutal World – a global survey that featured a collection of buildings from all around the world, representing just how widespread the movement was. But also, perhaps fuelled by Instagrammers posting dramatic black-and-white images of forgotten masterpieces of the movement, it had the effect of stopping us in our tracks. Was that what Brutalism really was? Beautiful?

Brutalism is usually associated with the hulking grey concrete monoliths of failed social housing projects in the UK, and totalitarian regimes looking for a way to portray themselves as both powerful and progressive. (The fact that a lot of it was overbearing and oppressive didn’t do any harm to their cause.) As these social and political failures have faded from living memory, it has gradually become possible to see them afresh.

ATLAS OF BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE by Peter Chadwick

Chadwick’s startling revelation of the multifaceted global character of the movement, plus its powerful prompt to rethink our attitude, was followed by Phaidon’s massive Atlas of Brutalist Architecture in 2018. It gathered more than 850 buildings around the globe by nearly 800 architects. Other books of the time included titles like Redefining Brutalism and SOS Brutalism: A Global Survey.

The impulse driving this wave of literature was perhaps something like a sense of responsibility to document and preserve their legacy – hence the massive scope of Atlas. Brutalism was still very much reviled, and many of the era’s concrete monoliths were bashed down without a second thought, but there was a growing sense that something was being lost.

THE BRUTALISTS: Brutalism’s Best Architects by Owen Hopkins

Now, a third wave is about to hit the shelves, led by another beautifully produced Phaidon survey. It’s different in that its focus is on the architects, although it has the requisite black-and-white photographs of their buildings. It also looks to be less broadly representative. Hopkins’s definition of Brutalism is looser than most: “a classic ‘late style’, sitting somewhere between Modernism’s high point and its final unravelling in what became Postmodernism”. And he focuses on just how individual, idiosyncratic and expressive many of these buildings were. This book represents Brutalism less as a monolithic movement itself (a favourite word used to describe its buildings) and more as “a polyphony of voices and approaches”.

These successive books show a growing awareness that whatever its eventual failings, Brutalism was originally underpinned by good intentions. Guided by the new possibilities offered by concrete construction, it was an optimistic movement charged with a sense that architecture could be central to creating a better world. Brutalist architects, though often hubristic, were driven by hope. This awareness, along with the new take in The Brutalists, can’t help but resonate with the present moment’s idealism and individualism. It’s food for thought as we consider our own architectural ambitions… and hubris.

All books can be found at phaidon.com.

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The post Brutal Books: Celebrating Brutalist Architecture appeared first on Visi.

WORDS Jo Buitendach PHOTOS Pablo Sievert (Cité Radieuse), Supplied (Water Tower), Max Colson (The Barbican/Lakeside Terrace), Daniel Hewitt (The Barbican/Foyers), Jo Buitendach (Ponte City), NJR ZA South Africa and Jo Buitendach (JHB Civic Centre), Mark Ahsmann and Andrija Simovic (Buzludzha Monument); Rockford Concrete Works

The Origin Story

Brutalism’s beginnings are contested, but it’s thought the pioneer of Modernism – Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier – had a hand in its origin. A lover of raw concrete, in 1952 Le Corbusier set about designing the Cité Radieuse in Marseilles, France. It’s a structure characterised by a powerful concrete framework and minimal decoration.

The term itself was coined by two British architects, Alison and Peter Smithson, and is derived from the French term béton brut, which means raw concrete.

Proponents of the design movement strived for honesty, and believed a building should not hide what it is or how it is put together. Brutalism is characterised by unusual shapes, rough surfaces, small windows and massive, powerful forms. The architectural style was a popular choice for government buildings, universities, car parks, low-cost social housing and high-rise blocks of flats.

The Barbican is one of the world’s most popular examples of Brutalist architecture. The pitted-concrete London estate is made up of three tower blocks, 13 terrace blocks, two mews, two blocks of townhouses, and an arts centre.

Architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon conceived it as a radical way to change the way Brits live. A city within a city, this imposing development was raised above street level, and aimed to integrate high-density living with educational institutions, retail offerings and cultural spaces. When Queen Elizabeth II opened it in 1982, she praised it as “one of the modern wonders of the world”.

Socialist Modernism

Brutalism is often associated with socialist ideology, and was popular in Eastern Europe from the 1960s to the 1980s. Because of its ties to the former regime, many monuments and buildings have been forgotten, left to fall into ruin or dismantled.

The Buzludzha Monument in Bulgaria is a good example of this. Opened in 1981, it is also known as the Buzludzha Memorial House, and sits on the site where the Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic Party was formed in 1891. The building, comprising a saucer-shaped body and a star mounted on a conjoined tower, was designed by Georgi Stoilov, who was heavily influenced by Brutalism and the work of architects Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. After years of neglect and harsh weather conditions,
the building is in a terrible state of neglect.

The Bureau for Art and Urban Research (BACU) focuses on the acknowledgment and protection of socialist landmarks in the former socialist bloc countries. It aims to research, document and add them to a database. Efforts such as this are crucial in, for example, Ukraine, where structures have been destroyed by recent Russian military action.

Closer to Home

South Africans are no strangers to Brutalism – just think of our university campuses and city centres. It was the often-preferred style of the apartheid state. Powerful and oppressive, these buildings watched over their citizens like big brother – fully symbolic of the Nationalist government’s political ideology.

Joburg’s Ponte City was built in 1975. Like the Barbican, this 54-storey cylindrical building – built on an uneven rock floor in Berea, and featuring a hollow core – was designed to be a “city within a city”. For a closer look at the evolution of Brutalist design, check out our article on Design Deconstruction: Brutalism.

Another star of Joburg Brutalism is the Grand Central Water Tower in Midrand. The eye-catching cone-shaped concrete structure, designed by GAPP Architects and built in 1997, is a relatively late nod to Brutalism.

The Johannesburg Civic Centre was designed by Monte Bryer & Associates and built in the early 1960s. The large authoritative structure, with a razor-thin western elevation, still towers over Braamfontein.

Cape Town’s Werdmuller Centre, completed in 1977, was designed by architect Roelof Uytenbogaardt. It was inspired by the work of Le Corbusier, and conceptualised as a shopping centre and mixed-use space with emphasis on pedestrians. Werdmuller has been a contentious topic for decades; many Capetonians think its harsh design is ugly and worthy of demolition. Others – including VISI! – argue for its architectural importance and heritage value.

Brutalism 2.0

Agata Toromanoff’s Brutalism Reinvented (Prestel) is a deep dive into how architects around the world are still embracing the principles of Brutalism – simplicity, functionality and rawness – today, and refining them with new technology. The book features hundreds of images of beautiful public buildings, homes and religious spaces.

But is it Brutal

The Sol Plaatje University Student Resource Centre in Kimberley is an impressive structure by architectural practice Designworkshop, who also conceived the award-winning Constitutional Court building in Joburg. With a 22cm-thick concrete shell that rises up 36 metres, it is viewed by some as Brutalist, or at the very least as influenced by the movement.

That said, Designworkshop’s Andrew Makin isn’t entirely comfortable with stylistic categories, arguing that this wasn’t their intent. The team was influenced by an urban framework that included buildings being designed right up against pedestrian routes, and the inclusion of courtyards. They also aimed to create a space for knowledge sharing and interchange.

Rather than Brutalism, Andrew says the brakdak flat roof structures of the Karoo were a major influence. But commenting on Designworkshop’s use of concrete as a material, he says, “I wonder whether the ‘Brutalist’ association would have arisen if the concrete had been pigmented to be more earth-coloured rather than grey”.

Power Seats

Furniture can also have Brutalist leanings – and MŪVEK furniture design studio’s MŪ61 chair is an example of this. The Cape Town company was founded by Chris van Niekerk and János Cserháti, who have long been interested in the work of Hungarian architect Marcel Breuer. It’s no surprise that they’re admirers of his Brutalist works, including The Met Breuer in New York and Hotel Marcel in New Haven, Connecticut.

OKHA’s new collection, Ambiguous Forms, comprises a small selection of limited-edition pieces – but Ambiguous Forms 4, a side table made of wood and metal, is standout gorgeous. The tabletop is cut from massive hunks of raw timber and stripped to its core identity – a celebration of honesty in material and construction.

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The post The Brutal Truth appeared first on Visi.

Behind its dramatic concrete façade, Brutalism holds a deep sensitivity towards social interaction and community engagement.

Sadly, you can’t see much of Cape Town’s Werdmuller Centre. Barricaded behind corrugated steel, this dilapidated 1970s building in Claremont was designed by local architect Roelof Uytenbogaardt, and is a rare South African example of Brutalism’s bold architectural approach. Where it peeks out above the three-metre-high enclosure, you get a hint of the genre’s typical aesthetic: audacious structures of raw concrete set out in monolithic geometric forms of rigid angles and, at times, massive volumetric curves. And it’s this crude, fortress-like appearance that has seen Brutalism labelled as cold and imposing by its detractors.

Its moniker, however, comes from béton brut (raw concrete), the iconic French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier’s material of choice. It was he who laid the foundation for a generation of Brutalist architects that emerged from the 1950s to the ’70s. The more celebrated names among them include Alison and Peter Smithson (England), Paul Rudolph (USA), Clorindo Testa (Italy/Argentina), Kenzō Tange (Japan) and Lina Bo Bardi (Brazil).

A furtive look through the Werdmuller’s steel blockade affords a more valuable insight into the principles on which Brutalism was founded. The old shopping centre has elevated public ramps, souk-like retail hubs, exposure to natural light, and a connecting thoroughfare between the train station on one end and the suburb on the other.

It was Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation social housing scheme in Marseille and the Smithsons’ Garden Building for St Hilda’s College in Oxford that further solidified this original sensitivity for context and social engagement. Their collective aim was inclusivity, and connecting the micro-societies that exist in diverse community structures. In a post-WWII era, Brutalism’s ideals lay in rebuilding ruined cities with a modernist approach that allowed for high-density spaces to be constructed quickly, using new technologies and keeping costs low. By exposing materials to highlight their elemental roughness, the architectural transparency and honesty echoed the utopian ideology for living and working in ways that were open and generous.

Another of Roelof Uytenbogaardt’s masterpieces, the UCT Sports Centre, demonstrates this employment of vast volumes, where one open hall leads to the next via extensive walkways. But of local structures, it’s the Rodney Grosskopff-designed Ponte Tower in Hillbrow that probably best encompasses everything Brutalism stands for. A radical, cylindrical, grey-concrete sculpture marking the Johannesburg skyline – either adored or abhorred – this 54-storey edifice thrives as an apartment block for all, with restaurants, a barber shop, a convenience store and a children’s community centre on the ground floor accessed by those passing by the building on foot, linking it to the vibrant street culture of the area.

It would be unfair to call Brutalism brutal. The ideology that underpins it – and the way those ideals are employed in buildings like Bo Bardi’s Sesc Pompeia in São Paulo (a community and recreation centre, library, theatre, exhibition space and more) and Tange’s Hiroshima Peace Centre – warrants a much gentler interpretation.

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The post Design Deconstruction: Brutalism appeared first on Visi.

WORDS Mila Crewe-Brown PRODUCTION Annemarie Meintjes PHOTOS Dook

It’s rare in this country that homeowners inherit a building of distinct architectural heritage, especially in a city as young as Johannesburg. So when husband and wife Silvio Rech and Lesley Carstens, of leading architecture studio Silvio Rech & Lesley Carstens Adventure Architecture, spied the late-1950s house at the dead-end of their lane in Westcliff’s uppermost reaches, they kept a beady eye on its movements.

“What I liked about it is that it’s so simple… We’ve been over-cluttering everything,” remarks Silvio. Still, dense overgrowth concealed the view entirely, and there were those who advised the couple to simply knock it down. Architecture devotees, however, favoured retaining its roots as an American Bungalow, and when they discovered that there was, in fact, a view beyond the trees, they did what any architect would do: they respected the building’s heritage.

READ MORE: Madagascan Resort

While the new house has greatly expanded on the former footprint and gained a lashing of drama, it’s in keeping with the spirit of the original. “How would a mid-century modern architect design this home today?” was the question that Silvio and Lesley asked. They absorbed themselves in studies of the Googie era, one of the Modern Movement’s scions, which was inspired by aeronautical travel and futurism. Imagine a meeting of The Jetsons and early James Bond dens: Googie homes broadcast formal simplicity, bold geometry and flamboyantly opulent gestures in their rooflines.

With the telltale atrium, rock features, zigzagging roofline and timber panelling all nodding to its Bungalow origins, Silvio and Lesley progressed onto a home that is daring, yet liveable and honest. A long concrete ramp rises slowly from the parking to the upper deck in the spirit of Tadao Ando and the Brutalist movement, while cueing a fascination with the future that Googie architecture championed.

READ MORE: Steyn City Penthouse

Material honesty is one of this home’s distinguishing features, tempering its flamboyance by way of oak cladding, honed granite slabs and widely used off -shutter concrete. The other feature is the view. “This house has been designed around it,” Lesley explains. The word “view” is modest when you’re referring to 270 degrees unfolding before you. A rim-flow water feature borders the façade, giving way to an outlook that rivals the sought-after Four Seasons Hotel, whose rooftops can be seen below.

Here, structural noise is minimal, with only a series of slender concrete pilotis emerging from the water to support the vast slab above. A Brutalist-inspired void pierces through the slab, allowing a shaft of light to penetrate, and affording a passage of travel between levels via a galvanised spiral staircase.

Inside, a homage to design’s greatest plays out among the bespoke fittings and primal materials palette. The couple’s furniture collection has grown organically, and features originals from design titans such as Charlotte Perriand, Joe Colombo, Isamu Noguchi and Jean Prouvé.

Upstairs, Silvio and Lesley’s bedroom squeezes every last drop from that view.“This whole house is about living with the elements: we wake with the sunrise, observing the change of colour from sunrise to sunset,” Lesley says as we stare out at a jacaranda-laden skyline. “And the Highveld storms… They are both majestic and terrifying.” | silviorechlesleycarstens.co.za

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The post Westcliff Ridge Home appeared first on Visi.