SWARTBERG HOUSE
PRINCE ALBERT, KAROO
Luscious landscapes!
Whitewashed Swartberg House sits in a field on the edge of Prince Albert. Olive groves and vineyards, acacias, and veld plants surround it and it’s well fortified not against attack by wild tribes from the mountains but against the heat of the summer.
‘It was important that the house functioned well in the extremes of hot and cold’ says the owner, an architect who designed it as a cluster of contemporary-looking ‘boxes’ of varying volumes, some laid on their sides, others upright, all of them interconnected by transitional spaces defined by low or high ceilings and steps. There’s a wonderful sense of discovery as you turn yet another corner and find a view framed by an aperture in the wall – either a narrow slit or a vast square window that, when rolled back into its slot in the wall, lets in the breezes that ventilate the house and cool it down.
