Location: Residential Project in Namibia

Our clients found us through the house we designed for them in the Auas Berg outside Windhoek, a home built for the founder of the Tranquility Eco Estate around his love of the Namibian landscape and his need for a place that could hold an extensive network of family and friends. When he began planning a holiday home on the coast in Swakopmund, he came back to us.

The two sites could not be more different. Windhoek sits inland, in mountain bushveld, where the house works with rock and thorn tree and endless sky. Swakopmund sits where the Namib Desert runs straight into the Atlantic, and this house sits closer still, its outdoor living stepping directly onto the beach with nothing but sand between the terrace and the waves.

The brief carried something forward from Windhoek. This is again a house built to hold people, not just a couple. A studio with its own en-suite sits on the ground floor, self-contained enough for a guest to come and go on their own schedule. Above it, a TV lounge, a main bedroom with its own balcony, and three further bedrooms give the house room for a full family gathering, with a rooftop terrace on top for the view no one wants to give up.

The wind off the Atlantic shapes the plan as much as the view does. On the entry side, sheltered from the sea breeze, a fire pit looks straight through the living room to the ocean beyond, so a windy evening still gets the sea.

Where Windhoek is dark timber and stone against desert light, Swakopmund is pale. The cladding runs in driftwood-toned timber, the garden walls are rubble stone, and inside, woven rattan pendants hang low over timber tables and wishbone chairs. A timber pergola runs the length of the entertaining terrace, its slats breaking the coastal wind and light the way reed screening might elsewhere. Open shelving holds ceramics rather than closed cabinets, keeping the ground floor feeling like an extension of the beach.

This one is still on the drawing board. The renders carry the intent, the sea is right there waiting for the build to catch up.