After three years of searching unsuccessfully for a house, Johannesburg-based couple Toni and Graeme Twidale eventually found an empty plot of land freed by a subdivision with beautiful, established indigenous trees. Toni says that she realised that what she wanted, more than a house, was to live among the trees! “I wanted to see green all the time,” she says. “I wanted the outside in.”
So, they decided to build a house that would, more than anything, be about the site. Toni and Graeme enlisted the help of architect Gregory Katz, who is well-known locally for his creative, experimental, and often unconventional approach. Of course, Toni says: “I wanted to keep all the trees.”
As Katz points out, his brief, as a result, became a bit of a “mathematical puzzle”.…
