A bold, sculptural holiday home on the slopes of the Steenberg Mountains in Cape Town is designed to frame a transformative experience of place.
On approach, the house appears as a series of blocks and pavilions emerging from the landscape. Despite the solidity of certain parts of the house, there are other parts where it is possible to see through from one side to the other.
The pool terrace is sheltered on three sides from the prevailing winds to create an outdoor living area alongside the swimming pool. The granite slabs here extend the finish of the indoor areas all the way to the end of the outdoor space, creating a sense of continuity. The stone perfectly matches the tone and colour of the concrete roof and the lime-plaster finish on the brick walls, creating the impression that the house is a single, unified object, made from the same material.
The main living, dining and kitchen area is housed in a pavilion-like structure with a heavy concrete canopy.
The living room is a light-filled pavilion that connects quite directly with the mountainside behind it. The homeowner is a vintage designer furniture dealer, so, while the furnishings are relatively sparse, they are carefully chosen and curated. Reverse-tapered concrete columns are another bespoke detail – a loose reference to ancient columns of the ruins of Knossos in Crete, which, while executed in a modern manner, evoke the mystery of these ancient buildings.
The upstairs main bedroom is simply but luxuriously furnished with a bespoke bed unit in oak to match the kitchen units. The timber finishes are consistent throughout the house.
The exterior of the house behind the living room includes an angular aperture in the wall, which frames a view and, in its unconventional execution, slightly shifts your awareness and consciousness in the act of looking. Here, the lime-finished brickwork of the wall is apparent. Its colour and tone match the concrete, but it appears almost as a new material.
Seen from the far end of the lounge area, looking back towards the kitchen, it is possible to see a drop in the soffit just before the kitchen where the canopy above the terrace and living area intersects with the third part of the house, which houses the main bedroom. You can also see how the quality of light changes with the transition, from bright and airy in the living room to slightly more subdued in the kitchen.
The chocolatey oak-finished kitchen has a luxurious but unimposing presence in the living pavilion. Around the vintage 70s dining table is a set of Arcadia Dining Chairs by Paolo Piva for B&B Italia. The bar stools at the kitchen counter are designed by Hermann Becker for Google Germany, and the pendant light above the dining table is a large Aplomb Suspension Lamp for Foscarini.
From the exterior, in another instance of bespoke window detailing, the living-room window ‘steps down’ on the outside of the floor slab so that the frame is invisible, offering an unmediated connection with the garden and landscape beyond.
The stripped down minimalism of the main en-suite bathroom is designed to bring a meditative dimension to the experience of bathing and cleansing. Rather than a freestanding bath, the architect designed a floor-level “receptacle for water”, perhaps referencing ancient bath-houses and the ritualistic aspect of cleansing, once again concentrating on the experience of the bath, and not just the thing itself.
The effect of the specially designed window frame is most apparent here. It all but vanishes, making for a powerfully unmediated experience of the views. The plinth alongside the bath and the basin are bespoke designs for which the architect sourced a local sandstone that matched the granite of the floors, the lime-washed walls and concrete. The shower has a splashback made from a slab of the same sandstone.
