HOUSE
Architect Greg Truen was inspired by the optimism of the Californian mid-century modernists to design his own light-filled home, reinterpreted in a contemporary context.
Mid- century modern design meets a contemporary African context in this home.
From busy Kloof Nek Road in Cape Town, architect Greg Truen’s house plays a little game with passers-by. The road is one of the city’s and the country’s oldest – originally a supply route for soldiers. The wall outside his house, facing the street, is made from stone, like the remnants of historical walls you find all around Cape Town.
“Whether it’s the wall down Buitengracht Street that separates the Bo-Kaap from the city or the walls at the Castle or around the harbour, they all use exactly this kind of construction,” says Greg. They’re part of the fabric of the city – immediately familiar and at home on the winding road between Table Mountain and Lion’s Head. “Kloof Nek Road is a very strong representation of the urban environment,” explains Greg. “The wall tries to set up a dialogue with the history of architecture in Cape Town.”
Beyond the boundary, however, is a tantalising vision: a glass roof that peeps over the top of the wall with a
kind of inverted pyramid floating inside it. “It becomes a light box at night,” says Greg. This mysterious ‘hat’ on top of the house is part of the building’s response to what Greg calls its “powerful” but complex site.
Once you’ve left the road, you find yourself descending a steep slope. The views around you close in, but open onto an incredible panoramic vista.
“You’ve got a big, expansive view of the city and the bay and the mountains in the distance,” explains Greg. “But, although you are surrounded by the mountain, you’re not that aware of it. You’ve kind of turned your back on it. You’ve got to look up to see it.”
That’s where the roof comes in: its origami-like structure takes the form of an inverted pyramid so that it can create clerestory windows and openings that let in views of Table Mountain and Lion’s Head behind the house. Greg’s solution to building on such a steep incline was to design a house that “cascades down the site”.
“You’ve got a big, expansive view of the city and the bay and the mountains.”
GREG TRUEN
“I’ve got some really cool bumblebees that visit every morning.”
GREG TRUEN
“I wanted each constructed level to feel like it was first and foremost a piece of the landscape with planting in it. I wanted to create slabs of landscape, and to bring the landscape right up to the edge of the internal spaces, as if the mountain comes right up to the house and then runs through it, so the floor surfaces are positioned on the land, as it were.”
He has even tiled the floors with granite slabs because “they have the colouring and composition that you often see in the Cape”.
The idea was to have the internal spaces – rooms in ordinary speak – feel as if they were simply covered strata of the mountainside. “You feel that you’re sitting in the landscape,” he says. “I’m quite interested in this idea of taking a slab of landscape and just putting a hat on it and living under that hat.”
The house is arranged on three levels, with garages and services at the bottom, bedrooms in the middle and living areas on top. In and around the rooms, there are planted courtyards – pockets of greenery – that Greg says make you feel as if you are “surrounded by landscape”. They enhance the effect of that amazing geometric roof, which Greg says is vividly animated by the sky, sun and the moon, and “reinforces the connection to nature and the mountain”.
The courtyards and smaller views create a sense of layering.
“It’s not just a big view,” says Greg, “and in some ways [the small views] are more rewarding.”
The way in which the gardens bring the landscape up and into the house also brings nature to his doorstep. “I was expecting birdlife,” says Greg, “which has been abundant and great, but the insect life that has emerged has been really interesting. I’ve got some really cool bumblebees that visit every morning.”
Inside, the open-plan spaces continue the sense of connectedness the house strives for in its blurring of landscape and building. Greg’s house isn’t just about engaging with Cape Town’s urban heritage and relating it to the powerful presence of nature that the city has. There’s a broader cultural sense in which he wants to engage with the spirit of place.
“I also want the building and what’s in it to reflect the cultural space that it comes from, both at a micro level of Cape Town, and at a macro level of Africa.”
Greg’s firm, SAOTA, does a lot of work throughout the African continent. “I have a very contemporary view of the continent as a modern place,” he says. “It’s exciting, and I wanted the house to reflect that.”
The washed oak interior finishes have their joints articulated with beautiful brass details, which are picked up in various fittings throughout the house. “One of the prompts for using a vein of metal through the house was the story of goldmining on Lion’s Head,” says Greg. In the 1880s, prospectors discovered gold deposits on Lion’s Head and tried to establish a mine. The venture never came to anything, but it remains a fascinating footnote to the city’s history. “The depression is still visible opposite the house,” he says.
The art and furnishings continue the dialogue the architecture begins with its starting point in the optimism and newness of early California or Brazilian
modernism. “I wanted that enthusiasm and optimism to come through,” says Greg. “It’s definitely got that new-world feel.”
The furnishings make good use of custom pieces from OKHA, the furniture design studio attached to SAOTA. There are pieces Greg has collected that also reflect a modern, globalised African aesthetic.
The Sefefo Series table and stools in the master bedroom, a collaboration between Botswanan designer Peter Mabeo and Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola, is a prime example. “It encapsulates all of these ideas about a global world, and a new modern African sensibility in that globalised world, as an equal partner,” says Greg.
The outdoor furniture from Moroso combines Senegalese and Italian design with contemporary materials in a similar way.
Greg’s Cape Town house is a home in the most profound sense – an attempt to create a vision of the future for today: optimistic, sophisticated and of its place.
“It’s definitely got that new-world feel.”
GREG TRUEN