A new house built on a plot with nothing on it, designed to need as little maintenance as possible. The site sat at one of the lowest points in Johannesburg, with huge water problems: the foundations, the trenches, the levelling and the sewer were all a fight. And there was not one single tree, so the garden was created from nothing.

Low maintenance decided the materials, and the materials were left honest. Off-shutter concrete on both floors, exposed, its roughness playing against the sleekness of the glass balustrade. Face brick that never needs attention. Two colours of hardy porcelain granite tile. Huge amounts of glass and aluminium blur the line between inside and out, so that even inside, you feel like you're outside. The upper storey cantilevers out with no support below it.

Ceilings run extra high, and the internal doors go all the way up to meet them, so nothing ever feels constricted. Closed, those same doors turn a room into a private sanctuary. Timber frames every door. Everything was custom.