Also in my Stellenbosch-inspiration search, I discovered architect Tom Kundig, and I am fascinated. I don’t necessarily love everything he does, but I do love how absolutely outside the box he is. He comes up with such creative means of having his buildings respond to their surroundings, whether in protecting them from the elements or exploiting views.

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Love the window in the wall that gives a view of the door– it really is a view in itself!

Below is another house he designed. This one lies in a flood plain that, as you can see, gets snowed in in the winter. To deal with the issue of flooding, he put it up on stilts. Then, to protect it from the elements when it is not in use, or to keep it warm inside at night in the winter, he designed huge steel shutters that slide on tracks and can completely close off the house. I also love that by sliding the shutters, you could change which rooms get views, thereby totally changing your experience of the house and the landscape.

In the book, he shows diagrams of other shutter-mechanisms he thought about using, and in seeing his thought process, you really realize how not-obvious this solution was to the problem, and you are even more impressed.

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