Brief: House in Helderkruin

Prize: ZAR6,968.03
Deadline: 21 February 2021 at 13h CAT
Budget: ZAR200,000.00
Site: Sabre Avenue, Helderkruin (ERF 641).

Re-design the interior and exterior spaces on this 1980s family house on a 2,003m² site so it can become a vacation retreat for an expat and her extended family (who’ll occupy it in her absence).

The client is a South African expat who lives in New York City in the USA. She would like the property to be her Johannesburg home when she visits. While she is away, the house will be lived in by her aunt and adult, male cousin. We shall call them the ‘tenants’. The client and her tenants each want their own independent bower (bedroom, bathroom and outside space) within the house. They also want the common areas of the house to have a better relationship with the outside and its interior to be updated.

The house is facebrick. It is sited on a steeply sloped west facing erf. The original building was completed in 1981 and has a skillion and lean-to roof. Its programme is separated into five wings: an entertaining wing, a living wing, a sleeping wing, a staff/flatlet wing (make up the main house) and a car wing (the only unconnected ancilliary structure). The living and sleeping wings are linked by an entrance hall; the entertaining and living wings are linked by a ‘lapa’ that was forced on in the 2000s (this was around the time that the kitchen received a remodel); the car wing and main house are linked by an uncovered walkway; and the staff/flatlet wing is linked to the main house by a dark single run stair. The staff wing has its own private access.

Living wing: the client would like to update its styling, consolidate the ‘cubicles’ into ‘one open plan living space that has a better connection with the outside and create a break-away room in case anyone wants to watch tv alone’.

Sleeping wing: the client would like to consolidate the two bedrooms to create an en-suite and an outside area. She would also like to update all the bathrooms.

Entrance hall: the client would like to ‘remove the existing roof (polycarbonate sheeting) and replace it with a skylight’.

Lapa: the client wants this roof removed and the linking archways to be raised - both currently do not satisfy the legal requirements.

Entertainment wing: improved connection with the outside.

Staff/flatlet wing: this will become a den for the client’s male, adult cousin. He would like the space to flow like a typical one bedroom apartment - he would like a kitchenette, bathroom and bedroom - and for it to have its own independent entrance but link to the main house and look ‘modern’.