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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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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A smart revamp of classic 1973 Pretoria apartments shows how cool high-density living can actually be.

In late 2019, architect Nadine Engelbrecht was approached by the owner of a low-rise apartment complex in the popular Pretoria suburb of Lynnwood with an interesting brief: to both renovate the existing flats and considerably add to the number of residential units on the property. Hillensberg, originally completed in 1973 to a design by architects Ivan Sive and May von Langenau, was at that point a set of two rows of three-bedroom apartments – 36 in all – with two rows of lockable garages in between the buildings containing the residential units.

Nadine relished the design challenge intrinsic to the brief because, she says, “I always find additions to old buildings fascinating. How do you reconcile old and new? Do you contrast them, or make the new blend into the old? How do you ensure that you respect the existing architecture?” Her client “wanted to maximise the potential of the site while maintaining the character, privacy and greenery that originally drew him to the apartments”, she explains.

Nadine’s ingenious design solution was to build 27 new two-bedroom apartments on top of the existing garages – hence the name she has given to the project: In Between 1973. By going this route, nothing has been added to the existing built footprint, allowing maximum green space to remain in the finished project. And as the name “In Between 1973” suggests, the design pays homage to the best of what the existing buildings had to offer, while also successfully updating them structurally and seamlessly adding new units whose aesthetic chimes beautifully with them.

The project commenced in January 2020, and after considerable delays resulting from the pandemic, was completed in May 2022. “Getting the old buildings up to today’s standards was the biggest challenge,” says Nadine. For example, the floor levels of the existing parking garages (beneath the new residential units) had to be lowered, “because today’s larger cars don’t fit into the 1973 parking spaces”, she says with a smile. And, of course, as additional apartments were being placed on top of them, there were structural strength issues to consider. “New structural supports were added to ensure safety and increase the overall lifespan,” Nadine says.

The existing buildings were brought up to date in terms of contemporary standards, too. “We had to add fire-compliance measures, replace glass with safety glass, and replace the electrical and plumbing connections,” she says. The overall design of the original buildings remained unaltered, however. The facades were tidied up as required, and some changes were made to the interiors, where internal walls were removed to transform the separate kitchen, dining and living areas into spacious, open-plan living zones that “allow more light to flow into the units, increase connectivity, and optimise circulation,” says Nadine. Electric geysers were replaced with more efficient gas versions, and services and fittings were updated throughout – but the parquet floors and full-height steel doors were retained and restored to their original beauty. “The 1973 apartments had an openness to them,” Nadine says. “They had large windows, views and such a calm neighbourhood feel, with garden spaces and large trees.”

When it came to creating the new units, the deep- yellow face brick of the original buildings could not be used again because of the closure of the quarry that had produced it. Nadine instead chose to use a black face brick that would generate contrast against the existing facades. Similarly, steel roof sheeting deployed as vertical cladding on the top floor of the new structures reflects the shingled sides of the existing buildings. And finally, existing interior elements were echoed in the new design, via the use of high ceilings and full-height aluminium-and-glass sliding doors.

“I love that even though we increased the density and added completely new buildings, the old and new apartments still have the same feeling of spaciousness,” says Nadine. To meet the increased need for privacy, timber sliding screens and large trees were installed; these also help to maintain the suburban feel of the original development. In addition, reclaimed materials were used wherever possible. Existing paving was reinstated after construction work was completed, and old bricks and pavers were reused to construct internal walls, too.

All this makes the project a model for smart, aesthetically pleasing and sustainable domestic architecture – and a useful example of how to meet South Africa’s need for urban densification, especially in existing suburban areas. The apartments were placed on the market individually after construction was completed, and sold out within three months. “Several of the previous tenants purchased apartments,” says Nadine. “I think people realised that the upgrade was necessary, and could see that the additions both respect the existing buildings and add value to the neighbourhood.” | nadineengelbrecht.co.za

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Although the Doxa Deo Chapel in Pretoria’s Brooklyn be but little, it’s a fiercely beautiful – and quietly confident – addition to the suburban sprawl that surrounds it.

An ethereal, luminously white slip of a thing, the latest architectural addition to the Doxa Deo Church campus could not be more diametrically opposed to the buxom, blocky facebrick buildings that it shares a plot of land with. But, according to NEO Architects’ Dries Verbeek and Phoebe van Dyk, the little chapel is anachronistic by design.

“The former AGS church and admin building were built in the 1970s to fit in with the suburban fabric of their surroundings – not according to any architectural style, per se,” says Dries. “The client commissioned a chapel that would pay homage to the early Christian buildings of the Roman era, but we took a shot and sent him references of more contemporary styles. Luckily, he loved them.”

“There’s an unwritten rule in architecture that a new building must display elements of its surroundings,” Phoebe adds. “We decided to do something totally different and make the chapel stand out.”

A site visit to the bustling campus helped to crystallise Dries and Phoebe’s concept. The only available space to build was a narrow rectangle of lawn hemmed in by the admin building’s entrance on one side and the church’s processional entrance on the other. Using this parcel of land would also serve the additional function of obscuring the admin building’s adjacent courtyard, which was used as a storage area. In response, Phoebe drew up a floor plan based on the contours of two mirroring Roman numeral sevens – a symbolically significant number in the Christian religion – which she then extrapolated into two curved folds.

Translated into three dimensions, the chapel consists of two curved walls, slightly offset from each other, with two narrow apertures – one at the entrance and the other at the altar – which are respectively referred to as the Alpha and the Omega. In an elegant nod to the conventional church tower, a floating roof culminates in a dramatic cantilevered shard, jutting out among a leopard tree and a water feature.

“Because of the shape of the building, we had to use a specialist contractor in ETICS (External Thermal Insulation Composite Systems) to construct a lightweight steel frame. We then clad it in Terraco board, with a textured plaster finish,” says Phoebe. “The chapel is on a prominent site on campus, with a lot of movement around it, so we introduced light and cross-ventilation to the building with two narrow slit windows – one at floor level, and the other below the roof on the opposite wall. There is also a skylight in the roof that mimics the form of the building.”

A design feature in their own right, slivers of rectangular sunlight are an ever-evolving presence in the chapel, tracking over the interior’s gleaming epoxy resin floor and birch wall panelling and slats to great captivating effect. “We wanted the interior to be a contrast to the clean, white exterior, so we opted for something warmer and more approachable,” says Phoebe. “The furniture is movable so that the space can be adapted to whatever is needed, whether it’s for prayer, small services or even weddings.”

At night, the chapel is illuminated from the inside, neatly inverting the light streaming through the horizontal and vertical fenestrations during the day. “It was important to illuminate the chapel at night, as the space is meant to be used at any time,” says Phoebe. “In the evenings, when you’re driving around the area, you can see this glowing beacon from afar.”

It’s a guiding light, if ever there was one. And it couldn’t be more mesmerising.

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The new Inoar Lifestyle Centre in Pretoria rejuvenates the mind and body with its tranquil spaces, striking sculptural forms and vibrant botanical elements.

Given the way we’re caught up in the demands of career, family and the rapid tempo of city living, time to pamper and revitalise the spirit is usually swallowed up in the melee. Hendrien Kruger, owner of Inoar Lifestyle Centre, recognised this challenge as a beckoning opportunity in disguise. “Our vision was for the centre to be more than just a destination where women get pampered,” she says. “We want it to be a haven that inspires, supports dreams and cultivates a sense of community.” Hendrien turned to award-winning architecture firm Earthworld Architects and Inside Interiors to transform her vision into a reality. Renowned for their skilful use of natural materials and exquisitely sculptural architecture, the architects’ design philosophy resonated immediately with the Inoar brand’s natural approach to beauty.

One step through the striking asymmetrical entrance gate transports the senses to the lush tropics of Brazil, where human structures interweave seamlessly with nature. A cheeky frangipani takes centre stage as it pokes its branches through a curvaceous, off-shutter concrete canopy, bejewelled with glittering mosaics to frame the intimate central courtyard space beyond.

“The design draws much of its inspiration from the Inoar brand itself, focusing on its Brazilian roots and its strong natural, botanical connection,” says architect André Eksteen. And the fact that Inoar is surrounded by schools, churches and office parks in the centrally located Nieuw Muckleneuk suburb of Pretoria was seen by the architects as an opportunity to strengthen and elevate the brand’s presence with a bold design.

In the spirit of beauty and revitalisation, the original structures were repurposed with a dramatic new look into three distinctive yet interconnected spaces – a reception and retail area, a fully serviced coffee shop, and a beauty and treatment salon. Overhead, the sculptural concrete canopy floats across the courtyard and wraps around the salon to create a singular, unified space.

An essential part of the botanical theme was the retention of all existing trees on the premises, which guided the look and feel of the design. Huge circular cutouts were punched through existing walls to allow more natural light into the interior spaces, while also creating beautifully framed views of the landscaped gardens beyond.

Inside, the sweeping lines create an elegant backdrop for the richly appointed interiors. The furniture and fittings were all designed for Inoar by Earthworld Architects and Inside Interiors, who worked with local manufacturers to achieve the intricate finishes. Luxurious textures and materials were chosen to imbue a sense of permanence. “Classic materials such as marble, brass, wood and granite were used in their most natural form to create a timeless look,” André says.

The architects purposefully steered clear of the clinical stereotype typically associated with beauty salons, opting rather for bold, sculptural forms, luxurious textures, and flora-inspired colours that focus the senses on beauty and pampering. While the immaculate attention to detail showcases the architects’ ability to excel at their craft, it is the subtle hints at playfulness that ultimately transform this design into a true masterpiece.

Looking for more on local architecture,  decor and design? Take a look at the Always Welcome Store in Hyde Park.

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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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Six years on from completing her award-winning Lynnwood Ridge home, architect Nadine Engelbrecht had some renovations planned when lockdown happened. She didn’t let the lack of contractors hold her back, however, turning the makeover into a family DIY project. 

“I believe a house should adapt with you to constantly meet your needs,” says Nadine. “My husband’s grandfather was also an architect. He used to say that you have to spend 5 % of your home’s worth every year on maintenance. Since moving in, we haven’t done much maintenance – a painted wall here or there, but it was time to invest in our home again. My family and how we live has changed, too.”

For the renovation, as with the original design – which won the PIA (Pretoria Institute of Architects) Award for Residential Architecture in 2015 – the site played a major role. A compact double storey house is artfully moulded around a large rock that dominates the small 400 m² site and rises 3m above street level. The goal with the design was to integrate the building into the landscape, with Faerie Glen Nature Reserve forming one of its borders, in addition to maximising the views over Pretoria and maintaining privacy.

Despite the constraints of the plot, the house has an easy, open flow. The ground floor features an open-plan living and kitchen with scullery and store room, and two bedrooms (one which was designed to be divided for future adaptation), two bathrooms and a walk-in closet upstairs on the first floor.

Plants and greenery envelope the structure, with large glass doors blurring the boundary between living inside and outside, and rocks found on the site were used for the façade. This reuse of found materials also tied in with Nadine’s approach to construction: Sustainable, low maintenance and cost effective in the form of rusted steel, reclaimed bricks (recovered from a dump site) and pine, textured concrete walls, exposed polished concrete floors and natural stone.

Rainwater harvesting, solar water heating, natural daylight and ventilation, passive heating and cooling and energy-efficient appliances and lights were also all considered in the original design. “From the beginning of the project, it was important to me to use materials honestly – to expose materials and show the construction and also to re-use where possible,” Nadine explains.

“The majority of the interior elements are custom designs by me and many have also been built by us. The large dining table, for example, was made of reclaimed floor beams which came from my husband’s family’s old farm house. His cousin made it up specifically for our house,” she adds.

With this industrious, salvaging spirit, Nadine’s hands-on approach to the renovation is no surprise. “When lockdown began, we were ready to go and all the materials were bought. Since we had some extra time at home and no way to get builders in, we did all the work ourselves. We tiled, painted and built shelves and cupboards. The renovation took a couple of weeks.”

She continues, “The renovation was made exciting by the lockdown and the lack of labour and materials. We got creative. We borrowed paint from neighbours, used leftover steel to build shelves and cupboards, tiled ourselves (and not 100 % straight)! I love everything about my house. It has also been exciting to experiment with materials (and to make a few mistakes and learn from them).”

For more projects visit Nadine’s website and stay up to date with news on Instagram (@engelbrechtnadine). Check out two other striking homes designed by Nadine here. 

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With flowing lines and monochrome hues, this generous Pretoria family home lets the outdoors take centre stage as it threads its roots deep into the heart of a mountain.

“Our journey on this project started with a phone call, which turned into a fascinating conversation,” says architect Greté van As of meeting the owners of this striking home for the first time. Having distilled their passion for balance between nature, people and architecture into an award-winning signature style, architectural duo Johan Wentzel and Greté van As of W Design Architecture Studio were, she says, thrilled at the opportunity to design a new residence for a like-minded family on one of the last pieces of pristine bushveld in Pretoria.

Blessed with spectacular views towards the north, and with the magnificent Bronberg Mountain as a backdrop, the architects were inspired to design a home that would merge unobtrusively into this very unique landscape. “We challenged ourselves to leave behind the smallest of footprints while introducing built structures into the sensitive surroundings,” Johan says.

Fortunately, a portion of the indigenous brush had already been disturbed at the base of the mountain, which became the perfect spot for further man-made meddling. The entire house was designed as a series of terraces originating from this base, climbing gradually up the mountain to make the most of the views. “Despite the rather large accommodation brief, we wanted to create intimate spaces – each with its own unique sense of identity, and each retaining its own direct connection to the mountain and the views,” says Johan.

Viewed from the top, the house again becomes one with nature as each indoor space flows seamlessly into the outdoors. Surrounded by nature on all sides, it comes complete with an indigenous roof garden to reclaim the natural landscape when viewed from above. “This is one of the things I love most about the house – the bottom levels disappear completely from view as they become a part of the landscape again,” says Johan.

Despite being hidden from view, the pavilions are all interconnected internally through a series of discreetly placed staircases and glazed sliding doors, allowing nature to weave and flow continuously through each space from one tier to the next.

Throughout the construction process, the owners made it clear that the existing fauna and flora would come first, and moved not a single tree from its original location. Carrying this theme into the interior of the house, the detailing and finishes were kept clean-cut and minimalist. Monochrome hues and natural materials further define the interior style.

“With nature being the artwork here, we styled the house to complement it, rather than compete with it,” Greté explains. “Even the furniture is entirely arranged towards the views.”

Regardless of the simplicity of the design, there’s a tangible sense of drama that compels the eye to look again. From the bedrooms, tufts of grass wave unassumingly over an impossibly clear drop of blue skyline; in the kitchen, the mountain seems on the verge of jumping through the window; and in the living room, the concrete roof garden defies gravity by floating on little more than thin air.

With its sensitive approach towards nature and its sophisticated simplicity, this house deservedly received a Pretoria Institute for Architecture award in 2019.

Love this space? Check out this modern Irene home.

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With a rare vantage point on the natural world, this distinctive Waterberg home’s design was dictated by its sylvan surrounds.

In a private reserve in the Waterberg, three hours north of Johannesburg, a series of buildings crouches camouflaged in a forest. You’d struggle to see them among the dense foliage, even from above. Two of those buildings – House of the Big Arch and House of the Tall Chimneys – constitute the home of a pair of veterinary scientists, a husband and wife whose passion for nature and the great outdoors drew them to this wild corner of the country.

Owing to its location on a 5 000-hectare farm-turned nature reserve, it’s not uncommon to see giraffe, leopard or genet, and an abundance of birds, from the paradise flycatcher to the yellow-bellied greenbul. It was during a ramble here that the owners came across a sandstone promontory that plunges into the riverine forest below, and decided that this very spot was to be their home.

READ MORE: Pinelands Home

As if contending with a steep gradient in a forest in the middle of the bushveld wasn’t enough to challenge their architect, their brief to him was “simply” to construct a tree house, without removing a single tree from the site. The young architect, who collaborates with a host of brilliant minds under the collective pseudonym Frankie Pappas, had the site Lidar-scanned to map the all-important trees.

For the homeowners, the Frankie Pappas ethos of forgoing ego and working mutually for a greater purpose struck a chord. The land should suffer minimal interference, they agreed, with the notion that one day, having served its purpose, the building will hopefully be swallowed up by the environment altogether. By “connecting the back end of the building to the sandstone as though it were a boulder”, the architect explains, the cliff becomes part of the home’s narrative. The initial stock-brick structure – and others that follow in front of it – are linked by enclosed timber “bridges”, leaving the ground free for animals to make their passage underneath.

READ MORE: About Face: Contemporary Face Brick Buildings

“You enter at the back of the home, at the cliff, and by the time you’ve reached the arch at the front end, you’re five metres up in the forest canopy,” the architect explains. Due to the limitations of finding a straight run between the trees, the main house (House of the Big Arch) is 3.3 metres wide and 22 metres at its full length. This long, skinny structure is wedged among trunks and branches, occasionally bulging out here or there to accommodate a dombeya or a monkey orange tree.

In an unconventional move, the bedroom is located some 50 metres away along a cliff path in the House of the Tall Chimneys. Here, bedroom and bathroom share an intimate connection with the trees.

Not only is the home completely off the grid, it also requires very little energy to run. It is positioned on a north-south axis, with its length facing east and west, and is designed to facilitate natural flows of cool air into and through the interior. Frankie Pappas also devised a series of chimneys that use an evaporative cooling system to further regulate the temperature.

The building’s language is neither contemporary nor old. The entrance is a narrow shaft that towers nine metres above ground, its arch emerging through the foliage; a dome is seen here, a column there. It’s a meeting of basic forms that delights the eye – a man-made creation sculpted by the land.

Frankie Pappas was recently included in the annual Wallpaper* Architects Directory as one of the Top 20 emerging architectural talents from across the globe.

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An artfully compact house in Pretoria’s old East announces the arrival of an urban sensibility in the suburbs of the capital.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s famous Dutch dictum, “less is more” refers to the removal of inessential material from architectural artefacts and details – but we could read it more literally. Should we do so, one important way in which less can be more has to do with the concept of density. Decrease the size of something without removing material, and its density increases. What you lose in breadth, you could gain in richness, texture and control.

Such is the case with Pretoria Bungalow, a jewellery box of a house tucked away in the recently densified interior of a suburban city block. The designation “bungalow” was carefully chosen to reflect the home’s balance between the discipline and frugality of dense living, and the relative freedom afforded by a freestanding form. Cobus Bothma of Laboratorium Architects – who is the architect, owner and occupant of the house – designed it while living in a penthouse apartment in Sunnyside, the city’s most densely populated, high-rise residential neighbourhood. And the resulting dwelling and garden represent a complex mediation between the exhilaration of urban living and the relative tranquillity and isolation of the suburbs.

Architect and occupant Cobus Bothma’s design for the dwelling and garden represent a complex mediation between the exhilaration of urban living and the relative tranquility and isolation of the suburbs.

Stylistically, the house falls into one of the many fringes of contemporary modernism, with notable regionalist inflections in the materials palette, in particular. The most striking formal gesture of the design is the large, continuous envelope of the roof – a rectangular bubble of steel floating on a strip of glass above the solidly grounded face-brick plinth.

For the interior, the effect is remarkable. By packing together the majority of the functional spaces on the southern side of the square plan, the architect left a comparatively large emptiness on the inside, luxuriously framing his collection of unique objects (paintings, ceramics and Mid-century furniture) in dazzling white. Somewhat like a dome, it lends a modernised baroque drama to the living spaces beneath.

The light-filled dining and living area opens onto a terrace via aluminium sliding doors. Mid-century furniture has been collected over the years and each piece has its unique story. The brown leather couch was inherited from Cobus’ grandparents and the solid kiaat dining-room table was custom-designed by the architect.

The strictly controlled, rational geometry necessary for containing the kitchen, bathroom, storage and circulation tightly under the mezzanine is offset by opulent textures, finishes and fixtures throughout. The use of colour-splattered terrazzo on the floor grounds the stark volume, while extensive solid kiaat cabinetry, stairs and details demarcate the functional spaces, firmly weighing the volume down on the southern side.

The vertical stacking of the house creates the effect of space cascading from the bedroom on the mezzanine into the main volume, and from there down onto the terrace and the garden beyond. The garden benefits from the same reduction in breadth in exchange for depth which lends the house its unusual richness.The removal of a suburban staple, the lawn, and the addition of a few carefully placed slopes, thickly blanketed in succulents and grasses, results in a fine-grained, verdant carpet.

In the living room, the house’s most poetic trick is revealed. By placing a continuous strip window at 750 millimetres from the floor, the architect has found a way to keep a sense of connection with the city. When standing, the views from the interior point downwards into the garden, creating a sense of privacy and containment, but when seated a vista is revealed to the northwest – where the setting sun washes the Union Buildings in flaming orange, purple and pink.

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