House Duval, Cape St. Francis

Building description

The house designed for a family of six, is situated on a constrained triangular shaped beach front plot. The site is protected from the shifting beach sand by Fyn-bos covered dunes. Raising the living areas for sea views over these dunes became the guiding design challenge.

House Approach

To maintain its connection to the main living areas, the pool was therefore elevated on the north side by building it above ground and wrapping water storage tanks and service rooms around it. Reflecting this at first floor level, the pool court is enclosed by the house and veranda, protecting it from the prevailing onshore winds. From here one has views through the living room to the sea and lighthouse.

Ground Floor Plan

1st Floor Plan

The house itself is split into three parts at angles to one another other with the staircases locating at the junctions. The roofs are flat at these points with mono-pitches over the three main volumes lifting to the north, allowing the rooms to focus on bay views to the South while keeping warm and well lit. The interrupted roofscape and wood cladding control the scale of the house from the approach as do the various decks and pergolas from the beach. Ground floor decking covers a second rain water storage tank and connects the games room and surf wet room to the garden, dunes and surf beyond.

Main Decks

Views Through

 The kitchen, open in part to the living room, anchors the layout and communicates with all sides of the house. Next to this the main stair draws one up through a sun screened double volume entrance hall onto the main landing - where one is greeted by the living room and views in all directions.

The hardwood decking, pergolas, balustrades and cladding, untreated and exposed, are all left to fade. Crisp white plastered forms are held between wood clad facades. The garages and landscaped terraces around the elevated pool are finished in a bagged red brick forming a rusticated plinth to the street facade.

Section A-A



Section B-B

Water wise and energy efficient the house harvests rain water, recycles grey water and runs on solar hot water. An inverter with back up power manages the electrical loading and is ready for the future addition of photovoltaic panels. Solid fuel fireplaces on both levels warm the well insulated house from their central positions.

Open Corner



Decks & Plaster



Pool Court

North Elevation



East Elevation

South Elevation

West Elevation



For more information on House Duval visit:

ST&AR Website

House van der Walt

View 1

View 2

View 3

View 4

Pool View

Entrance

Concept and Finished Project

Corridor

House Waterkeyn

Approach

The Clients brief called for partial demolition of the existing small bungalow in order to establish a more spacious home for the family of 4 to grow into.

The site has fantastic views to the north of the back table which deserved some elevation to be fully appreciated. It was therefore proposed to open plan the existing structure, devoting it to the new kitchen and living areas which would flow out to the pool, with the new studio/main en-suite above.

View 01

Adjacent to this a new section of building accommodating the children’s bedrooms and play room is proposed with a glazed double volume holding a floating staircase as the linking element.

Roofs in this proposal are flat and contained between a series of screens and fins which serve to allocate outside spaces and hold shading planes over the north facade. The levels between the floor slabs and shading planes open up on the facades to let light into the deeper spaces.

View 2

In this proposal the house remains essentially the same with the exception of some planning adjustments – where the main en-suite swaps position with the upstairs studio and it has a different roofscape – one that defines the roof as a series of cranked shells which hold the lower volumes and then peel back and lift up to contain the higher levels, without disengaging on the south side.

Roof View

The cranked section of the roof is then punctured with roof windows bringing south light into the roof volumes at high levels. The East and West ends of the house are expressed as floating boxed elements projecting beyond the old flat facades.

Interior Perspective

Design Indaba Concept 2011

Cape Town Design Indaba 2011 - An Imagined City

Light boxes above stalls

Stalls with built up light boxes

Layout of Cape Towns 2011 Design Indaba

View into Cape Town Design Indaba 2011

Cape Town Design Indaba - An imagined City

Cape Town 2011 Design Indaba as seen with the light boxes switched off

House Carpenter Frank

Approach to house

House Carpenter- Frank is a new two level semi-detached building on Quarterdeck road in Kalk bay, sited on a platform cut into the mountain slope and supported on the road side by a series of battered retaining walls. In a similar load bearing manner the front terrace introduces a final wall which the house then sets back from.

The site originally held two freestanding mono-pitch cottages which were incorporated into one building with a Spanish style in the 1970’s. The property and house was then subdivided with an internal division wall precariously becoming a party wall between the two properties. The Client requested a conversion of their two bedroom mezzanine apartment into a full double storey to accommodate a family of four, but due to the poor state of the structure it was necessary to demolish the existing building bar the party wall and neighbouring structure.

View from Kalk Bay Park

Street view

The simple layout of three bedrooms over three living rooms with circulation backing onto the new party wall was the initial spatial idea. The existing old party wall was carefully reinforced and extended to provide a new watertight and sound proof division between the old and the new. From this the roof could only pitch away and alongside the wall, setting up the simple roofscape and a parapet condition off which both parties could suspend roofs.

The ground floor living spaces are all open plan, with services at the rear screened off the kitchen. All rooms open out onto terraces with views across False bay. Internally the stair and 1^st floor landing serving the bedrooms, are lit by a series of skylights between exposed rafters.

Staircase landing

Dining Room

Lounge

Living Room

Kitchen

A title deed servitude initially constricted the girth of the building, but once relaxed the wider layout had just enough space to accommodate an entrance lobby next to the living room on ground floor with the main en-suite shower above, complete with cantilevered corner for uninterrupted views and whale watching.

The open plan design and mono pitch roof immediately lent itself to a contemporary approach and so the materials and colours chosen and the openings and eaves were designed accordingly. The scale of the house is diminished by splitting the finishes on the South West façade with a hard wood cladding and plaster finish. The stepped plan layout, broken facades and overhanging eaves further temper the massing of an otherwise simple mono-pitch box.

View over Kalk Bay Harbour

© Copyright Stuart Thompson, 04 August 2008, all rights reserved

The SAIA may use part or all of this information and its associated references for publication with the authors permission.

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