PANEL OF JUDGES
JONATHAN ANSTEY STAUCH VORSTER ARCHITECTS
FARHAD AREFF URBAN EDGE ARCHITECTS
SONJA PETRUS SPAMER MMA ARCHITECTS
JURI ABBOTT URBAN EDGE ARCHITECS
JUDGES’ COMMENTS
JONATHAN ANSTEY OF STAUCH VORSTER ARCHITECTS COMMENTS ON THE OVERALL ENTRIES:
It is with great enthusiasm that we congratulate the entrants for the energy employed in realizing the vast array of architectural solutions. We were entranced by the level of thoughtfulness and quality of presentation across the board. Once again the students proved that great design results from bravery supported by huge commitment – WELL DONE!
SONJA PETRUS SPAMER OF MMA ARCHITECTS COMMENTS ON THE WINNING ENTRY:
This years winning entry celebrates the beauty of stone architecture and specifically the use of Caesarstone in the finest way I have seen to date. The concept celebrates the duality of permanence and security – rock and the transience and spiritual – air; steel; glass. The forces of the geologists complex connection to the earth, the city and the sky shaping space in an extraordinarily simple yet complex way. The bedroom is a glass and steel belvedere from where Siegfried can contemplate the sky, the city and nature at the same time. A place to contemplate and a place to dream. The rock hewn cave like spaces below houses the traditional program for the house, save the subterranean bathing area right down below in the belly of the earth. The cave made habitable and elegant for the lover of its rock treasure (the geologist) and his friends. The store is rough hewn, matt, to highly polished – wide selection of patterning and colour. Carved out of natural and manmade stone (Caesarstone) the house concretizes the wild and serene terrain of exploration geology and the elegant order of the city in eternal conflict. Yet the design brings serenity to this juxtaposition. For me the winning entry is the possibility of stone as space making and space defining element writ large and well.
