Nina Maritz Architects sustainable architecture and design
THE ORIGINAL HOUSE
NINA MARITZ ARCHITECTS’ OFFICES
LOCATION:
Windhoek
PROJECT STATUS:
Completed 2009
(improvements ongoing)
CLIENT:
Albizia Properties cc.
This refurbishment of a rather derelict outbuilding with three rooms, two bathrooms and a kitchenette made a kind of purse, albeit not silk, of a sow’s ear by placing an upper floor on the lower section, taking out a bathroom to enlarge the kitchen, moving the second bathroom out of the footprint and opening up the smaller rooms to include unused veranda space. Flexibility is a key concept, with only the ‘machine rooms’ (bathroom and kitchen as per Charles Moore’s definition) not able to transform functionally merely by moving furniture, making an overnight conversion to residential dwelling possible.
Generous re-use of existing materials combined with vigorous indigenous planting around the building makes for an unusual creative space where old and new, contemporary and traditional co-exist harmoniously. Sample glass mosaic and marble/granite tiles, prosopis timber furniture, reed ceilings and milk-bottle lampshades mingle in a whimsical and pragmatic collage. Natural materials, natural ventilation, daylight, evaporative cooling and views into the tree-canopy makes this literally and figuratively a ‘green office’.