This renovation of a St James villa — affectionately referred to as the Afri-Spanish house — began not as an act of correction, but of careful interpretation. Set into a steep slope, the original structure offered a South African reading of the Spanish villa: a playful assembly of levels, arches, and idiosyncratic shifts. Rather than resolve these irregularities, the project chose to intensify them.
Curves were deepened, apertures reshaped into generous arches, and new porthole windows carefully cut to frame precise moments of mountain, ocean, and horizon. The project unfolded through an intuitive and open-ended process, where design decisions were guided less by prescription than by the slow reading of space. Light, thickness, and movement became primary tools. Interventions were drawn and tested on paper, yet many were ultimately discovered on site — refined through bodily experience, shifting light, and occupation. For the architects, the task was to give coherence to these gestures: to draw out what was already latent in the building and its setting. A muted material palette and hand-finished detailing anchor the work, allowing texture, shadow, and proportion to quietly register over time. The result is a house that reveals itself gradually — grounded, tactile, and slightly enigmatic.