African project Create Cafe – South Africa
66 africandesignmagazine . com
Photography by Marsel Roothma
smallscale bigthinking
In order to extend the facilities of her boutique hotel , Charmaine Freyer of Alpine Attitude Boutique Hotel acquired a neighbouring property which contained an old Pretoria house in dire condition with little surrounding space to expand . The concept proposed architect Nadine Engelbrecht was to recondition the existing house and free-standing garage into a conference room and café using minimal cost , disturbance and time .
Create Cafe is a small scale renovation project with the majority of the new implementation constructed using steel and sheet metal roofing . Special attention is paid to detail elements and the raw quality of each building material is exposed . Steel as a new structural element is celebrated whilst the honesty of the previous brick building is exposed .
Engelbrecht completed her Master of Architecture degree at the University of Pretoria in 2008 . Additional expertise in sustainable architecture was gained when she participated as a guest student in the Master degree , Climate Design , at the Technical University of Munich , Germany . “ During my three years working experience at Boogertman and Partners ’ Architects , I focused on residential , mixed use development , retail , offices and responsible design strategies ,” she says .
In 2012 she started practicing independently and commenced various projects including local and international residential houses and multiunit residential projects . “ In 2015 my project , House E was awarded a Pretoria Institude of Architect ’ s regional award and in 2016 House GA 26 received an award from Lafarge Artevia for the use of Decorative Concrete ,“ she says .
The project The structural integrity of the existing garage walls was questionable and a steel portal frame structure was placed over the existing walls to