INTO THE WILD
This clever holiday home in the South African ‘Karoo’ region fits perfectly into the wild landscape
South Africa’s Route 62 winds its way through the mostly arid Klein (little) and Groot (great) Karoo for 800 kilometres, taking its passengers through placid towns, ramshackle hamlets and sprawling farmlands. It’s pure unadulterated ‘big sky country’. One town on this iconic thoroughfare is Vanwyksdorp, a typically small settlement and an oasis for the farming families living on the homesteads surrounding it. It’s some 25 kilometres away that Pietro and Amanda Russo (pictured below with their son, Antonio) found the property they’d been searching for - for fifive years. “We love the Little Karoo,” says Pietro, an architect and the designer of his family’s off-grid escape – a prefabricated pod concept he has named Ecomo, a marriage of the words eco and mobile. “Amanda’s family can trace their settler heritage to the region and both her sister and her mother live in the area.” The property’s prospectus appeared in Pietro’s inbox one Sunday morning and he wasted no time. “I drove here in the pouring rain from Cape Town that same day and fell in love,” he says. A few months later, they purchased the plot.
It took a few more months of planning before the couple set the building wheels in motion. For both Pietro and Amanda, whose passion is interior design, accessing the views was imperative to the design and it was essential that they felt at one with their natural surrounds, rather than imposing themselves on the environment. “We walked the plot for months before deciding where to build. Every dimension of the house is based on where we have the best view and the quality of various aspects of the landscape, including the orientation, the dam, the mountain peaks, the rock formations and the flflora. Even when we cook and wash up, we can see the dam and the Rooiberg mountain pass,” says Pietro. He drew up a plan for a space that makes as little impact on the environment as possible. Each panel of the family’s home was constructed off-site and included all electric wiring, waterproofifing and insulation, and all the panels were delivered at once, minimising the home’s carbon footprint. All cooking happens on gas, the appliances are solar powered and the lighting is LED.Yet, despite its eco pedigree and focus on getting back to basics, there’s been no loss in aesthetic quality: the home is a celebration of clean contemporary lines and warm tones and textures.
The house consists of two adjacent pods, which together create three main living areas – a 50-square-metre central living and kitchen space with the couple’s and Antonio’s bedrooms situated on each side of it. Off the living area is a covered deck, perfect for afternoon naps. Every window acts as a frame for the surrounds and offers extraordinary views no matter the season. “In the spring, it’s incredible.You can see the flflowers emerge and carpet the landscape, while in winter we spend so much time cosied up next to the fifire,” says Amanda. The home is designed to let the outside in and the open sides allow for ventilation. This proves vital in summer as temperatures regularly reach 40°C.
“Pietro designed a lot of the furniture himself,” says Amanda. “He likes a clean-lined aesthetic while I’m a little more bohemian, so we worked hard to marry the two styles. We wanted it to be comfortable, warm and accessible, as well as in keeping with the natural tones of the veld, the often moody sky and the Rooiberg Pass with its blood-red boulders.”
While there’s no denying the beauty of both the surrounds and interiors, what this home provides the Russo family with is something rather more valuable. “Connecting to nature in all its rawness, not being governed by a schedule and the abundance of space and silence are all things we look forward to when we come here from the city,” says Amanda. “But mostly, our home gives us time – time to really enjoy each other and reflflect on our lives and of course, the beauty of this magnifificent place.”