The ecomo home is a compact home designed for modern, simple living in collaboration with nature. The design is based on basic sustainable, green design principles. The ecomo home offers a low-maintenance, modern, well-designed green housing alternative.
The house is used as a holiday home by a single person, who often invites guest to stay. It needed to be a space that could be used as a controlled studio with the feeling of being open, as well as to be able to morph into private and individual spaces when the house is full of visitors.
The House is situated in one of Pretoria's oldest Golf Estates, which has already been extensively developed. Our client was particularly open-minded in buying one of the last open plots in the estate, an extremely rocky piece of ground not many would see opportunity in.
More than a pavilion, here we have a residence that is structured around individual yet interconnected building spaces (common living areas and private bedroom spaces)… Functionality, here, was key, as every part of the residence is designed to serve a specific purpose all the while transpiring openness and well‐being.
Benin-based architect Pascal De Souza recently completed this beautiful eco-villa situated in Cape Coast, Ghana. The villa, a combination of a traditional technique of palm concrete, isolation in ceilings with grass and brickwork, explores the breezy coast with open facades and indoor outdoor spaces that connect the specific rooms of the house into one seamless spatially inclusive space.
Sao Vicente, Cape Verde archipelago, is a volcanic island, dry and arid, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where the elements of nature are extreme and dominant, technology and hand labor are basic and not very specialized, life is simple and flows slowly, following the cycles of nature. A foreign customer, adventurous and without budget constraints, decided to build a home that contains his...
Trees are precious in Africa. They provide shelter for the elders at meeting time, for school children in the midday heat, for all to shield against the unrelenting elements. In a sense the tree has become iconic, almost mythical.
The Angolan urban patios explore the home as a city and the city as a home. Architecture and a city are different manifestations of the same theme. The city isn’t simply the reunion of buildings or houses; it is a big and complex building.
Malan Vorster have been involved with previous projects on this tree-rich property, and were commissioned to design a small contemporary house to complement the existing collection of buildings - spatially organised around a modern interpretation of the Cape Werf.
The experience that RBTA has gained in the construction of housing developments was called on by the Algerian government, through the agency of France, to be applied to the construction of new centres of population in semi-desert areas where agriculture was to be promoted.
OVD525 is a private home located in Bantry Bay, Cape Town. The steep mountainside site boasts un-disturbed views over Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard and Robben Island to the north and north-east. The city is seen in the distance towards the east and the iconic Lion’s Head Mountain towers over the house from the south. Western views take advantage of spectacular ocean-sunsets.
Looking at the amount of discarded containers laying around the building site of the Salam Centre we had this simple idea: to use them again in order to realize the required international staff housing compound.
Kisito Children's Home is a Residential Childcare for babies 0-24 months. Recent years some children have come presenting disabilities result of encephalopathy, which is why it has been impossible to find a host family until now. The orphanage is permanently at the limit of its capacity which forces babies and infants with disabilities to share resting place. As the responsible explained, this ...
The house is set on a secluded, tranquil stand surrounded by established trees. The main house consists of 2 wings: the living wing and the bedroom wing. Both wings have long, low roofs which appear to float over and past them. These roofs are supported on external steel posts, as all of the walls stop short of the ceiling, with clerestory windows on top of all internal and external walls. The ...
This house has been designed to be highly flexible and adapt to the owners' changing needs. The house has two skins throughout: the sliding glass windows and doors, and the sliding timber shutters, which enable the owners to constantly transform the look and feel of the spaces to suit their activities, the weather and the time.
The property had an existing house, which completely under-utilized the site’s fantastic characteristics. The brief called for a dynamic response to capitalise on the site, creating an environment where the young family could enjoy an outdoor lifestyle offered by the site. This outdoor area is protected from the prevailing winds, and enjoys views of the sea, and more immediate views of large bo...
Is it possible to develop a low cost house without using the conventional brick + mortar + concrete mix? This was the question posed by the Cape Town based [design Advocacy] organization, Design Indaba, through the 10 x 10 housing project competition. The competition invited 10 teams, each consisting of one international and one South African Architect to design for a family in freedom Park Ar...