When an entrepreneurial couple decided to build a tasting room on their Stellenbosch property Kunjani!, they didn’t anticipate that Haldane Martin would turn it into a landmark. But now there it is.

You can’t miss Kunjani! Wines’ tasting room. Coming round a bend in Blumberg Drive, Devonvale – itself one of the most scenic roads in the Cape Winelands – the building greets you like a vivacious host at a Christmas lunch who knows that you will just love her absolutely favourite Shiraz.

The lipstick red of the sliding screens and Kunjani! Wines signage enlivens the building’s black paintwork and dark-grey Table Mountain slate, and contrasts intelligently with the green of the surrounding vineyards. Framed by the pine trees that line the road, Kunjani! is a smiling South African howzit. A warm and welcoming woza in the Winelands.

Those familiar with designer Haldane Martin’s recent work at Urbanologi restaurant in Johannesburg or his 2016 design of Healey’s Cheesery in Somerset West would not be completely surprised by the liberal doses of red. I, for one, thought that the colour was becoming something of a signature style or trademark flourish. But I was wrong.

“Oh no, it’s not like red is my favourite colour or anything,” Haldane says. “It just so happened that red has been the right colour for the projects and clients’ brands that I have been involved in recently. And it was the right colour for Kunjani! Wines, which is a bold, unpretentious brand. Pia [ Watermeyer] and Paul [Barth] are passionate people, so the red symbolises them.”

In fact, the building as it exists today would not have been possible without co-owner Pia’s passion. At first, the architects insisted that the building should be white, in line with the more traditional Cape Dutch aesthetic of the Winelands. “Haldane and I sat there being bullied by about 15 architects,” Pia says, “but in the end I put my foot down.” Then Pia had to negotiate her husband’s aversion to black. “It’s not a colour as far as Paul is concerned,” she says. But Pia has an impish determination, which acted as a vanguard for Haldane’s vision.

Haldane relished getting more extensively involved in the architectural details on this project than usual. Out went the conventional wooden rafters, and in came slatted wooden ceiling and red steel tie beams, a reference to the traditional reed ceilings of old farmhouses. Haldane invoked a pantheon of local designers and artists to complement his own creations: Doktor and Misses, La Grange Interiors, Pedersen + Lennard, James Mudge, Laurie Wiid van Heerden, Goet Furniture and Design, Sarah Ord Interiors, LIM, Robin Sprong Wall papers, Peter Pharoah, Krisjan Rossouw…

In your rearview mirror, the red sliding screens take Kunjani! Wines from an arty shrine to a significant landmark. A monument, even, to the time when a feisty owner and a progressive designer made sure that contemporary African flavour triumphed over traditional tastes.

Take an exclusive 360-degree tour of this space and watch our video interview with Haldane here.

For more information about this space, visit kunjaniwines.co.za.

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Wyatt Hairdressing’s premises at 44 Stanley  Avenue, designed by Dokter and Misses, offers a masterclass in design collaboration and practical, environmentally friendly aesthetics.

One of the keys to running an environmentally friendly business, says a red-lipped Candice Wyatt-Minter, is to “use things that last”. She points to the sleek stainless-steel tea and coffee cups in her salon, Wyatt Hairdressing and Barbering. “We’ve been using them for six-and-a-half years,” she says. “They don’t chip, they don’t break. They were from a camping store. They’re made out of Isosteel.”

It’s a philosophy that extends across Candice’s personal and business lives, which centre around the complex at 44 Stanley Avenue where her salon is based. She and her husband walk to work (from their nearby home at The Refinery); he works in the Media Mill on Quince Street, a block away; they share a car that they “use maybe twice a week”; and the salon stocks  a high-end brand of ecofriendly haircare products made by Italian company Davines.

Wyatt Hairdressing started off in a compact space, tucked away in the (now-leafy) courtyard of 44 Stanley. Over the years, however, the business had grown to the extent that Candice had to turn away clients. When her landlord offered her bigger premises, fronting on to Stanley Avenue (and sitting above Gallery AOP), she snapped it up and engaged her (44 Stanley) neighbours, designers Adriaan Hugo and Katy Taplin of Dokter and Misses, to design the new salon.

The roll-out plan Dokter and Misses developed was so precise that – once the floor was diamond-grinded, the walls painted, the wiring finished and the lighting installed – they were able to deliver all of the salon’s furniture in a single day.

During renovations Candice ordered things like a gas geyser, solar panels and LED lightbulbs, while Dokter and Misses put together designs, some based on their existing work, others completely new pieces inspired by Candice’s brief. One such installation is the suspended steel-framed mirrors in the colour section, complemented by flattering custom lighting that help make the “40 or 50 minutes a woman stares at herself in the mirror a more pleasant, less daunting experience,” Candice explains.

In the cutting section there are wider versions of Dokter and Misses’ classic Easy Mirror and, throughout the salon, a series of living green installations by Dokter and Misses and Joe Paine. There’s Joe’s iconic Kreep Planter and also a hanging plant installation that can be lowered and raised by a pulley system, not to mention the eye-catching circular Palm Trellises that hang behind the reception desk. “I wanted an oxygen-rich space,” Candice says.

Other steps she took to keep her new space green included maximising the salon’s natural light, removing the four air-conditioner units and reusing as many of her old fittings as possible.

Above the lounge is an exposed ceiling, showing off the old wooden beams and curves of a corrugated-metal roof. Candice says she may have to install another fireplace to heat the salon in winter (it’s a large space and the heat tends to escape through the roof), but that when clients “have their hair washed, they comment on the ceiling”. It’s exactly what Wyatt offers: a different head space.

For more information, visit facebook.com/WyattHairdressingAndBarbering.

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