Ed’s letter

There is no such thing as a new idea” – words famously uttered by Mark Twain. “It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.We give them a turn, and they make new and curious combinations.”

I don’t buy it.

First, I don’t think old Mark actually believed that – he had a penchant for winding everyone up (and particularly, I suspect, people who held great sway in weighty quotes) – and second, he never read this issue of VISI. There are some designs in this month’s edition that only the deeply cynical could label as derivative.

Have a look at the Frankie Pappas-penned House of the

Big Arch and House of the Tall Chimneys on page 90, and tell me this isn’t a truly fresh approach to building a home uniquely sensitive to its surroundings. And Luis Mira’s astonishing Bishopscourt home on page 100 … it quite literally made our jaws drop when we first saw images of the rear façade that appears to be a slice of a 1970s

Manhattan high-rise, magically transposed to a leafy

Western Cape suburb.

And even if it’s not, strictly speaking, a new idea,

I really love seeing people do something unexpected. The &Beyond

Sossusvlei Desert Lodge (page 66) looks more like a James Bond vs Mad Max movie set than the usual luxury lodge – and while the newly built Tamboerskloof abode on page 130 may at first glance be a beautiful though relatively conventional home, walk inside and you’ll witness its owners’ colourful and wonderfully quirky decor sense.

These are just a few of the properties that make up an issue broadly themed around The Great Outdoors. As a counterpoint to VISI 106’s

Small Spaces focus, our features in 107 look at lodges in the actual great outdoors, as well as homes that are either uniquely embedded in the landscape or have a fresh take on the idea of indoor/outdoor living.

Of course, in our Vision and Reasons sections you can again peruse a host of inspirational local and international decor ideas, noteworthy public architecture, maverick artwork – and a selection of South

African rums. I’m told it’s the new gin. No doubt Mark would have something to say about that.