PROPE RTYOFTH E MONTH what she wanted in terms of layout and arrangement of space. In fact, she gave us a sketch not unlike the final layout. Certainly, we took those ideas, worked and developed them, and the synergy resulted in a dramatic and memorable structure.’ ‘The house works around the double-volume living room space, and all the ancillary spaces work off that,’ Patrick adds. ‘It became the main nodal point for the entire design. In essence, it’s quite a symmetrical layout – with some asymmetrical play as well – but there’s the central living space, then the building is split two ways. The home presents a very symmetrical facade to the forest edge.’ Pat’s house was one of the first projects that Stefan Antoni Olmesdahl Truen Architects developed at Hawaan and the practice was determined to explore and play with all those criteria they’d set for the estate. The primary one was the integration of nature, and fostering that, the use of natural materials and elements. Water plays a central role, as a guide into and through the building: flowing outdoors, even beneath glass, indoors – finally picking up on the axial vista with a pond coming in at right angles to the main swimming pool. The engagement with the environment was one of the important design criteria. The architects wanted to ensure each room was not purely internalised, but related to the external spaces as well. The result – a powerful internal/external relationship. Patrick describes the numerous devices which aid that relationship in terms of continuity of material: ‘The living room space was almost conceptualised as a garden pavilion, so once you fold the doors back into their cavity sliders, the whole room becomes a big garden space, which opens up onto the terrace area. No discernible division between the two.’
The weathering, untreated timber screens and pergolas aren’t simply there to provide a scaling or design element; they’re highly functional, and placed in areas where solar and wind control are strong requirements.The home employs a great deal of glass, a material viewed by the architects in an abstract – rather than conventional – way. ‘We consider them as big openings or abstract arrangements or expressions, rather than simply doors and windows,’ says Patrick. He adds, ‘There’s also a lot of structural gymnastics going on in this building. From the word go, as you arrive, you have this incredible cantilever, which comes right over the entrance, and appears completely unsupported on the edge. That, together with the use of lengths of glass, means you’re also looking at these very long spans, and you’re left asking the question, How does this stand up? That’s always an interesting one …’ Endorsing the architect’s commitment to smudging the lines between indoors and out was a commitment to an extraordinary garden. Pat can’t think small, and set her sights on the charismatic celebrity Irishman, Diarmuid Gavin, renowned for avoiding obvious landscaping solutions. ‘I’d always been a fan of Diarmuid’s work, and had been tracking him and his extraordinary gardens for years,’ she says. ‘I knew he was the right person, unafraid to push boundaries.’ Pat wrote to him. Within weeks, Diarmuid’s office responded: he was intrigued, and soon thereafter, on his way to South Africa. No, he didn’t know much about indigenous South African plants but, undaunted, he spent time with leaders in the field: Chris Dalziel, of Durban Botanic Gardens, and Geoff Nichols. Diarmuid was captivated with Pat’s vision that, in time, when the fingers of forest crept up and filled in, the homes would end up peeping out of this magical landscape. For him, ‘the architecture
was the wow factor, so it wasn’t competition which was called for, but subtlety and simplicity. The garden would always be the forest, so between house and forest, a certain quiet clarity.’ Diarmuid shot one line from the house straight off towards the forest on a kind of catwalk. Then he created movement left and right, with stripes and strips of lawn at different levels. Was he trying to mirror something in the building? He responds, ‘When you’re reacting to the forest, you know for sure you can’t control it, so you want to step down gently and create a bit of subtle fun with different levels.’ And he has. But, as Pat expected, Diarmuid found it imperative ‘to have a flourish’ among the subtlety. ‘I’m a good listener,’ he says. He has absorbed Pat’s lifestyle – how she’s as happy to be sociable as she is to be solitary. He has created a subterranean outdoor space, a safe and secure sunken room in which Pat can entertain as comfortably as she can spend time there alone with music and a book. Grinning, Diarmuid says, ‘I think this space is like an antidote to the big scary forest, and the very large house, a bit hobbit-like, under the ground.’ Clearly, Pat chose Diarmuid for the inevitable twist for which he’s renowned, although he’s quick to offer a different take on his reputation for quirkiness: ‘I never set out to look for the unusual, but when you explore a place properly, you think, There must be something else. There always is. Here, the subterranean room was the response to that.’ For the architects, although they took a conscious approach to keep everything very neutral and calm internally, the building is about a layering and unfolding of experience as you walk through it. A bit of mystery comes about every time you turn a corner or go through another space – it reveals itself gradually. Eliciting a sense of excitement and the unexpected were important parts of the concept, and they work. Wonderfully.
“She gave us a sketch not unlike the final layout. Certainly, we took those ideas, worked and developed them, and the synergy resulted in a dramatic and memorable structure.”
WITH THANKS Diarmuid Gavin Designs, Diarmuid Gavin, diarmuidgavindesigns.co.uk Stefan Antoni Olmesdahl Truen Architects, Patrick Ferguson, +27 (0)31 566 4893, saota.com Hawaan Investments, Pat Naicker, +27 (0)82 785 1155, hawaan.com
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