Designed by Johan Wentzel and Greta van As of W Design Architecture Studio, this family home in Pretoria’s old suburbs looks to almost forgotten lessons and familiar local materials to create a sense of “the familiarity of the new”.

It’s the kind of house you barely notice from its jacaranda-lined street in Waterkloof Ridge in Pretoria. It is “very low-profile”, says Johan Wentzel of W Design Architecture Studio, which he and his partner in life and work, Grete van As, founded together. Given the home’s spectacular setting, downplaying the grandeur of the entrance heightens the impact of what’s to come when you cross the threshold.

“When you enter, the first thing you see is the garden,” says Johan. It’s beautiful, with large, established trees and terraces, and with stone retaining walls running down to the “dog park”, as the locals call it (in reality, an expanse of lawns, woods and pools in a valley dropping down towards a dam). The boundary is barely discernible, so the garden seems to stretch on forever, as if the house were out in the countryside rather than in suburbia. “It always takes people by surprise,” he says.

And that’s the key to the design, say Johan and Grete: it’s about “looking outwards as opposed to being looked at”. Johan likes to quote the legendary American architect Louis Kahn, who said, “Design is not making beauty; beauty emerges from selection, affinities, integration, love.” Johan and Grete’s task, as they perceived it, was not so much to create beauty as to unlock it – to facilitate an experience.

Seen from the bottom of the garden, the house almost disappears among the trees. It’s been built largely on the footprint of a pre-existing house, of which little more than the foundations and a few refurbished outbuildings remain. The original building was already surrounded by trees, and although Johan and Grete extended it somewhat, they were able to “push in underneath the foliage”, says Johan. As a result, the house looks as though it has been there for ages. It’s settled in, emerging more like a layer of history than a new arrival. In fact, while the living spaces and the stoep have a sense of space around them, floating above the view, around the bedrooms the gardens push right up against the house. It’s nestled in, and every room opens to the outside. This gives the bedrooms a more grounded, sheltered feeling than the open social areas of the home, which are more like a classic modernist glass box.

Another factor that contributes to this sense of being settled has to do with one of Johan’s favourite phrases: what he calls “the familiarity of the new”. By this, he means that he and Grete deliberately looked to familiar architectural solutions when designing and building this house, particularly when it came to selecting the materials. Rather than “recreating” or “reinventing” the house, they wanted to “refer” to something familiar and appropriate. Their approach was about “using solutions that have been known for hundreds of years, that were obvious in the past but got lost for some reason”.

They chose local materials that those familiar with Pretoria and its surrounds will remember from their grandparents’ and parents’ homes: slate crazy paving, stone from the site itself, gravel. There’s something comforting about these earthy, honest textures. In the same way that the house connects with the garden and the view, the materials connect not only with the site (actually using stone from the ground it’s built on) but with other certainties and comforts that exist in old memories, and the kind of continuities that make us feel secure and at home. Even the brise-soleils (another old but brilliant solution to Pretoria’s hot climate) are made from timber salvaged from the previous house.

Designing like this takes a great deal of restraint. Because it’s so much about emotion, the architects have to know when to stop, in order not to overdo anything. There’s a directness in this kind of architecture that can be lost when too many finishings are layered on. The ability of the house to evoke a powerful response can only be achieved when the light is just right, the connections are beautiful, the materials are rich, and the detailing just refined enough. It’s what Grete and Johan call “luxury without excess” or, as Johan puts it, “doing just what’s needed, doing it well, and then standing back”.

Only then, “space, light an order” – the things the great pioneer of Modernism, Le Corbusier, said we really need – are allowed their truest expression. What you experience is the garden, the view, the changing of the seasons. The house, more than anything, is there to enhance them, to make the experience. | wdas.co.za

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Prioritising proportions, context and longevity, this new luxury development in Pretoria makes the case of location-sensitive architecture.

There’s an oversupply of architecture in South Africa that’s more concerned with what is on the surface than how well the space functions and how it relates to its surroundings. Overly worked and too often themed, it presents the “dream” of living in a certain typecast style by way of gratuitous, decorative frills. This is especially prevalent in large-scale developments, where quality of life ends up coming second to feature walls and on-trend design elements that lack connection to their context.

When Johan Wentzel and Grete van As of W Design Architecture Studio had the initial discussions for Roundabout Brooklyn with developers KEE Properties, they envisaged an apartment block that would exist in harmony with its surroundings, with a focus on honesty, longevity and above all, liveability. They were also cognisant of inheriting staggering views of many of Pretoria’s most notable sites and planned the layout to make the most of this.

“We want to get back to creating buildings that will still be relevant in 40 years’ time. We’ve lost that; buildings today have short life spans,” says Johan. By distilling the suburban dream (a secure home that lives out towards a garden) and downscaling it, the two have combined the benefits of apartment living with a high-end offering to those seeking a home, rather than a transitional space.

Each apartment faces north and has its own terrace, either generously planted in off-shutter concrete containers or with views into the dense canopy that the designers have created. And all the units are liberally proportioned, ranging from 60m² one-bedrooms, to a 175m² three-bedroom penthouse with its own swimming pool.

The penthouse has its own rooftop terrace with an eight-metre lap pool offering wide-open views of Pretoria.

Containing just 21 apartments and with a stepped structure, the building is sensitively scaled in response to its neighbours. The street-facing units, where single-storey residential homes exist, are only two storeys high while those behind them – where the building backs onto a shopping centre – rise up to four. “It’s like a multiple adaptor; whatever is happening next to it determines how we develop it,” says Johan of what they’ve unofficially dubbed “the mediator”.

Material honesty is central to the development’s quest for simplicity. Opting for the bare minimum of single-trade and unfinished materials, this is a structure that reveals its parts openly. A quick glance at Roundabout Brooklyn reveals impeccably laid face brick in two shades, combined with unfinished concrete and steel – all of it in arresting precision, like a neat frame whose parts have been seamlessly slotted in. The lack of finishing such as plastering, tiling and painting does away with demanding maintenance, ensuring a shelf life that surpasses current norms.

The building’s clean-lined, contemporary form echoes this notion with a no-fuss aesthetic that emphasises the experience of living in each space: the surplus of natural light, the quality of the finishes and ready access to green spaces are all part of that experience. From the ground level, a row of Harpephyllum caffrum (indigenous wild plum) trees already rises to meet the first floor and will soon offer its apartment dwellers a view into the canopy. Planter boxes of varying sizes are landscaped with succulents and the walls play canvas to tickey creepers that have already started their upward journey. Up on the communal rooftop terrace, the views are spectacular and celebrate all that Pretoria has to offer: dense greenery that follows an undulating landscape.

Rather than overlaying an isolated living concept, the designers’ approach here is both responsive and sensitive, in the hopes of achieving architectural longevity. “As architects, we have the opportunity to do something responsible in our lifetime, instead of putting the onus on future generations,” concludes Johan.

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The VISI Great Spaces tour of W Design’s new home studio in Pretoria focused on designing for spatial flexibility.

The tour, which was held in association with Saint-Gobain, was also a great example of how to make the most of a small stand, something many guests were eager to ask architects Johan Wentzel and Grete Van As about, as well as VISI deputy editor Annemarie Meintjes.

As readers sipped on Graham Beck Brut and nibbled on scrumptious cakes, they were able to fully experience the interesting veld garden, as well as the elevated main living space of the studio, which offers great views beyond the stand walls.

Guests left with the latest issue of VISI and a bottle of Graham Beck Brut.

We have more tours coming up! Book your spot right here.

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The spaces between living and working are merging, as VISI explored in The Office issue last year. Now Designboom have picked up on the “floating” building in Pretoria’s leafy Menlo Park that we featured. With its work area cleverly separated from the living space by two staircases, it provides its owner with the best of both worlds.

Wouldn’t it be great to roll out of bed, straight to the office, without the hassles of traffic and parking? Or to enjoy a coffee at your favourite café, without having to return to walled-in suburbia at the end of the day?

This is exactly what architects Johan Wentzel and Grete van As of W Design Architecture Studio had in mind when they conceptualised this contemporary but unpretentious building (owned by George Sutherland of Event Wizards) in the semi-urban neighbourhood of Menlo Park, in the east of Pretoria. “We wanted to design a building that could change over time into whatever our clients need it to become – whether that’s a home or an office, and especially to make it possible for them to have multiple variations of both,” says Johan.

At first glance, there’s an unmistakable air of openness that invites you in. The building, nestled in between a mixture of residential and small business properties, seems to float among the trees, and even wraps around an existing stinkwood. “We wanted to create an illusion of space despite the relatively small size of the site,” Johan explains. A transparent security screen replaces the traditional solid walls that have become the signature of suburbia. Grass concrete pavers extend to the street edge to add a soft green touch to the parking area.

Keeping professional and private lives separate is one of the major challenges of this kind of set-up. The architects resolved this dilemma by creating two separate staircases leading from the entrance foyer on the ground level up to the first floor, where it conveniently splits the upstairs level into two independent wings.

One of the wings is slightly bigger than the other, so it’s easy to imagine how a start-up home office can initially reside in the smaller wing and then, over time, migrate effortlessly to the bigger wing, as it grows into a fully fledged business venture. Or, as the family grows, the spaces can be reversed to accommodate more (and older) children.

Another perk of living and working in the same building means that a step across the adjacent threshold is all that’s required to prepare a quick lunchtime snack, or to clear your head for five minutes while sinking back into your favourite armchair.

The flipside of that coin is the potential feeling of being bottled up in one place. But, somehow, in this space it’s impossible to feel caged in… The wide vista of unobstructed views that open up on the first level – where solid concrete gives way to continuous glazing – creates an overridng sense of space, which goes way beyond the boundaries of the property.

The interior architectural style of the building is subtle and sophisticated. A striking patterned ceiling is created throughout by the layout of the off-shutter concrete roof, and rays of light filter through coloured glass beads that were used to fill the holes left by the concrete formwork in the walls. Commenting on the unusual finishes, Johan explains: “We wanted to keep the interiors simple, almost like a blank canvas, so that whoever occupies the building in future can be a part of the creative process.” The attention to detail and the pared-back decorative touches add warmth to the minimalist interior.

Tucked away underneath the deep shady overhangs of the cantilevering concrete roof, all the windows slide open to reveal the hustle and bustle of the lively street life below. A whiff of freshly baked croissants wafts up from the bakery down the road. A deftly clad woman steps out of her office persona and slips into her mom’s taxi. Another car passes by… Perhaps it’s a bit less about where you live and a bit more about how you live? Which world do you choose to live in?

W Design Architecture Studio, 083 445 0424, wdas.co.za.

See more of our articles about office design here.

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