Contact Artefacts
please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.
Menu
HomeUpfront
Now Up
Books
Towns
Structures
People
Firms
Lexicon
West Reach House
Port Alfred, Eastern Cape
 |  |  |  |  |
Contact Artefacts | MenuHomeUpfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon | West Reach House | | ||||||
| |||||||||
Click to view map Coordinates: | Were we to have told you the story of our house, we would have begun with the 1820 Settlers, barns, tents, food, music and holidays. We would have told of: THE LOCATION The Eastern Cape with its rich heritage of Settler, Victorian and Edwardian Architecture. The Kowie (as Port Alfred is affectionately known to its intimates) with its great, navigable, tidal river cutting magnificent swathes through gently rounded hills to form steep krantzes covered with riverine bush thick with euphorbia. THE SITE Narrow and steep with a breathtaking view (into the setting sun) of the western reach of the Kowie River. Pirie Lane gives access from the East to a level terrace on the highest part of the site. From here the ground falls steeply to the river’s edge (in the foreground) – the river bends to the West and becomes Bell's Reach (in the distance). Apart from the three hundred year old Boerboom on the Southern boundary, the riverine bush has long since been cleared. THE BRIEF A holiday house for the extended family, their children and their friends (up to 60 people!). A family which enjoys cooking, sailing, camping, outdoor living and being together on special occasions. THE INSPIRATION The view, the site, the Eastern Cape vernacular of Barns, Churches, Gables and Verandahs. The idea of holidays, tents and boats. THE SOLUTION A symmetrical massing incorporating a sheltered entrance and outdoor living court, flanked by two carports-cum-belvederes (either side) between the house and the street. The long, barrel-vaulted barnhouse placed in the centre of the site, fronts the court single-storied, and stretches buttressed, towards the view and the afternoon sun. We opened up the north to views and to the sun – we closed down the south to the neighbours and the wind and made there the hearth with funnel-like chimneys standing free. As the ground falls steeply away without, so too, do the floors drop within, until, the barnhouse becomes four-floored on its river face and sports sun-shading steel belconies. Inside, galleries and tent like lofts (hung from the roof) overlook double volumes below and provide sleeping space (for several children and their friends) between church-like arris-chamfered bowstring trusses. Life revolves around the kitchen centred beneath the double volume below the lofts – the floors are cut away to expose the downward view to the river to all within. Beneath it all, Parents (and their guests) have brick-encased self-contained suites. For our part, we have attempted to design a building, which though readily datable, will transcend the vagaries of architectural fashion, and invoke a sense of timelessness. Mira Kamstra Books that reference West Reach House
|
|
