House J By Kevin Fellingham Architecture, South Africa

November 03, 2009 Category: House, Residential

The House J was designed by Kevin Fellingham Architecture is located in Simonstown, South Africa. This project was an attempt to find an architectural space between things. It was a very personal project in that it is a home designed for my parents.

The house is situated on the edge of Simonstown, between the architectural conservation area of the city and area of nature conservation National Park Table Mountain, between nature and culture, between sea and mountains. The house is not only placed where it is manufactured and how it is used and how it is but it is its location, its construction and use, each design decision has been folded back on itself in search of clarity that is inclusive context rather than an idea imposed from outside.

The presence of a set of design codes to avoid anything that unusual to be built were in the background. The house consists of a series of materials in parallel with open spaces between them eroded. This echoes the landscape of capes and bays framed by the opening cut through the mass of the walls. This opening is shaded by an overhang, held like a hand over his eyes when he looks towards the horizon, as for the sandstone overhangs on the slope behind the house under which the original inhabitants have sought refuge and prospect.

This threshold gives the house its purpose, the simultaneous experience powerfully for housing and exposure to the natural world.
The house is organized as Simonstown is a series of sandstone retaining walls and small white buildings stepping up the slope, ramps and stairs in the narrow spaces between them. Doors, windows and shutters are arranged in layers on the outside walls white shaded to mediate between the elements and architecture.

The ceiling of the main rooms fl oat into the sky through the concrete structure, the roof pitch. The service areas are covered by a terrace on which the mountain streams, providing intimate access on its slopes.
The design was developed in London by Kevin Fellingham technical documentation, contract administration and inspection on site by the architects of the team in Cape Town under the direction of Philip Stiekema.

House J by Kevin Fellingham Architecture in Simonstown, South Africa