Anne-apolis

Restoration of a heritage building is a complex and specialised activity, especially if the building has heritage status and needs to comply with legislation. Here it is essential to consult with a qualified heritage architect, who will be able to guide you through the process. If the building is not protected by legislation, we have more of a free hand, but we need to navigate the complex decisions around authenticity, practicality and affordability. This becomes even more difficult if we also want to aim for the smallest possible environmental impact. I was introduced to lifecycle costing several years ago, when I was teaching alongside one of the experts, whose PhD and subsequent research focus has been on this topic. As with heritage, this is a complex topic and one that needs specialist input if we are to have a robust lifecycle analysis. This said, there are some pointers that we can use to allow us to interact with the experts, or just to give us guidance if we don't have th...

  A couple of years ago, in 2019, a family member had seriously run out of space. Her apartment has many special features, primary of which is a most spectacular view, with a large balcony opening off the living room and bedroom. It is also in a very secure and well-managed complex, where her sister lives, so there were many very compelling reasons to solve the space problem. View from the balcony The bedroom and kitchen had quite old fittings, dating to the original construction of the building in 1998, so a refurbishment could potentially be a good investment by improving the resale value of the unit.  We began the design process working room by room to determine how much space and of what type was needed. We focused on the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, as these rooms had outdated fittings that would be strategic to replace. We drew up an inventory for each of these three rooms and then measured up the spaces to draw the base plans.  We started with the kitchen, an ope...

Before I moved into my present flat, it was essential to refurbish the kitchen entirely: the existing fittings must have been installed in the 1960s, and many of the cupboards had been severely damaged. This was a great opportunity to restore some of the original 1930s features as the rest of the interior was still quite authentic, with the original wooden parquet and boarded pine floors, paneled doors and Art Deco door handles. My design intention was to keep the layout of the kitchen as simple as possible, respecting the symmetry of the building design and its strong horizontal emphasis, seen in the exterior treatment of the building which has a "streamline moderne" aesthetic. At the same time, I wanted to use modern fittings, such as granite work-tops, and built-in stove-top and oven.  The kitchen is quite small and compact, 3m wide by 2.5m deep, so the design needed to be carefully tailored to be able to accommodate all the fittings and leave space for the large appliance...

  Once we have established the date or style of our home, we can now think about whether we want to furnish it with contemporary furniture and fittings. An approach that I have found very effective is to have one or two period pieces in a room as accents, with the rest of the furniture very understated, but in materials, colours or textures that relate to these "set pieces". I can also recommend this approach to fittings - find pieces that harmonise with the style of the building if you cannot find an authentic item. So where can we search for these focal pieces? At the top end, and particularly for older pieces such as Art Deco or earlier than the 1930s, we can explore antique and collectables shops or auction houses. The staff here are usually very knowledgeable about the pieces that they have, so you can draw on their experience and expertise as you are getting a feel for the period you are working with.  While browsing through Instagram, I found a super company that speci...

Finding out the date of your home can be quite challenging, but often there are clues from the fittings and finishes. If the building is quite old, it may have had minor or even extensive renovations at some point, so there are no hard-and-fast rules, but rather pointers that can help us understand how it was originally designed. One of the first things we notice in an older building is the woodwork - floors, windows and doors. A clue to the date of a house or apartment with parquet flooring is that it probably dates from 1910 to the late 1940s.  Parquet flooring (creative commons licensed:  https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://www.avwoodenflooring.co.za/gallery/IMG20180504072208-3881.jpg&imgrefurl=https://www.avwoodenflooring.co.za/p/630800/parquet-wooden-flooring--pretoriajohannesburg&h=4096&w=2304&tbnid=tPfIt4WAQKm4aM&source=sa.im&tbnh=300&tbnw=168&usg=AI4_-kRaHi3ZZQ33cKAJo1CoLT2RDJyyMQ&vet=1&docid=CYytjMFiCp5u_M) Before this ...