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– Johannesburg City –

Sarah’s house is in the ‘Hollywood Hills’ of Joburg. In touch with the old city, the ‘dangerous’ city, Hillbrow, Yeoville, Berea, this is how she likes it.

 

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Residential Projects

Container House / Cuilidh / Verandah House / Dunkeld House / Sea House / Little Cliff House / Cocoon House / Fynbos House / Anti-estate House / First House / Watershed / Hyde Park House / Dual Vision House / House / Nostalgia / Melville Vaults / Bara House / Folding Lofts / Vredehoek Lofts / Somerset House School / Loop House / Floodline House / Dune House / Cintsa House / Bantry Bay House

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Work/House

– Johannesburg City –

A small house in Parkhurst is re-structured for consulting work, while retaining all the elements of a future house.

What was cold and damp has become warm and sunny. What was tiny and cramped has become expansive.

A wide patio type walkway links the parts and edges an internal courtyard bring sunlight to the rear.

 

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pdf60 South Africa House




Residential Projects

Container House / Cuilidh / Verandah House / Dunkeld House / Sea House / Little Cliff House / Cocoon House / Fynbos House / Anti-estate House / First House / Watershed / Hyde Park House / Dual Vision House / House / Nostalgia / Melville Vaults / Bara House / Folding Lofts / Vredehoek Lofts / Somerset House School / Loop House / Floodline House / Dune House / Cintsa House / Bantry Bay House

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Nostalgia

– Parkhurst, Johannesburg –

A private retreat for two overhanging the Sarah has known this house intimately since she was 5 years old. The house was built in 1965 by Neil Duncan, architect, upon the relocation of the family from the then Salisbury, Rhodesia. It mimicked in large part their Salisbury house, a single storey 3 bedroom house built on the smell of an oil rag. This did not, however, stop it being a beautiful piece of design – quintessentially subcontinental, climatically appropriate, unassuming, modest yet modernist, elegantly sotto voce – set into a magnificent garden spanning the Parkhurst rivulet, dynamically landscaped by Neil and adorned with his sculptures. The house and verandah were filled with Neil and Sheena’s conversation, objects, furniture, tapestries and carpets, a large proportion of which were made by Neil himself. Sarah spent many days and nights at this family house between the ages of 5 and 16, and there are many elements of the original house that Sarah knows she deeply absorbed into her design lexicon. She credits this house (alongside Roedean School buildings) with the primary formation of her architectural (and political) consciousness.

How to (re)set these elements (both physical and psychological) into a new dynamic formation? How to enhance the best parts, rethink the problematic areas, bring living and energy requirements into the 21st century, add another storey, and keep it all resonant with its original intention and feeling – both of which had been exceptional? Iconic elements (Neil’s double circular columns) are remade and used in new positions. His germinal skylights have been extended and amplified into an expressive strip that brings light into the centre of the house. A large part of the original roof remains legible in both internal volume and external scale. Quite some degree of conceptual dynamite was required: the previously difficult formal lounge has become the covered patio – inside becomes outside and retains the original fireplace as a structural column. The original verandah, an integral and central element of the house, has moved yet retains potency.

Where the house has changed most it remains uncannily legible – parts and elements are recognizable, although differently deployed: the original living room fireplace stands in the same place, but now delineates the covered patio and makes a major supporting element for the new first floor. All spaces are more open, more dynamic, generous, luxurious, lighter and warmer in the winter. One can still ‘feel the plan’ of the original house…tread the steps that always tread… One walks around the house wearing X-Ray specs, as it were. Spatial correspondences and structures that were hitherto concealed are revealed, energies released to new lives.


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pdf60 House & Leisure Renovations Competition




Residential Projects

Container House / Cuilidh / Verandah House / Dunkeld House / Sea House / Little Cliff House / Cocoon House / Fynbos House / Anti-estate House / First House / Watershed / Hyde Park House / Dual Vision House / House / Nostalgia / Melville Vaults / Bara House / Folding Lofts / Vredehoek Lofts / Somerset House School / Loop House / Floodline House / Dune House / Cintsa House / Bantry Bay House

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Melville Vaults

– Melville, Johannesburg –

An eccentric face brick cottage comprising 2 parabolic vaults around an old single garage is crowded with furniture. It requires the first floor urgently. Here a glazed bedroom and bathroom rise between the vaults to take advantage of the massive urban view, and the ground floor is allowed to empty out to the singularly intimate garden.


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pdf60 House & Leisure, March 2015




Residential Projects

Container House / Cuilidh / Verandah House / Dunkeld House / Sea House / Little Cliff House / Cocoon House / Fynbos House / Anti-estate House / First House / Watershed / Hyde Park House / Dual Vision House / House / Nostalgia / Melville Vaults / Bara House / Folding Lofts / Vredehoek Lofts / Somerset House School / Loop House / Floodline House / Dune House / Cintsa House / Bantry Bay House

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Bara House

– Dunkeld, Johannesburg –

A face brick ranch-style house on a Dunkeld sub-division is eviscerated. Vast living spaces emerge out of the original warren, and the verandah throws its hat high to rolling green lawns. Light enters in most unexpected ways..


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Residential Projects

Container House / Cuilidh / Verandah House / Dunkeld House / Sea House / Little Cliff House / Cocoon House / Fynbos House / Anti-estate House / First House / Watershed / Hyde Park House / Dual Vision House / House / Nostalgia / Melville Vaults / Bara House / Folding Lofts / Vredehoek Lofts / Somerset House School / Loop House / Floodline House / Dune House / Cintsa House / Bantry Bay House

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Folding Lofts

– Kensington, Johannesburg –

2 loft bedrooms for 2 little boys in a suburban Kensington house – one green/blue, one red/orange/yellow, visible to each other across the stairwell through flap down desks. These are landscapes for play: trains, lakes, seas, toybox interiors.


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Residential Projects

Container House / Cuilidh / Verandah House / Dunkeld House / Sea House / Little Cliff House / Cocoon House / Fynbos House / Anti-estate House / First House / Watershed / Hyde Park House / Dual Vision House / House / Nostalgia / Melville Vaults / Bara House / Folding Lofts / Vredehoek Lofts / Somerset House School / Loop House / Floodline House / Dune House / Cintsa House / Bantry Bay House

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