Back to Earth
Real Living Australia|February 2022
A barn-like farmhouse with a colossal kitchen and organic vegetable garden has been lovingly crafted by its architect owner, who saw the beauty in reusing salvaged materials
graham wood
Back to Earth

WHEN THE DE WIT FAMILY moved to this farm north-west of Johannesburg, South Africa, they took the question of how to build, and live, very seriously. The original farmhouse on the property got the architect owner, Lee, thinking: it wasn’t the kind of spot you could return to nature; it wasn’t beautiful, nor did it have any architectural merit or historical value.

Still, it didn’t make sense simply to demolish it for those reasons alone – plus Lee felt an ancestral connection to the area. The solution the De Wits landed on was a simple one: they would use what was already there as the basis for creating a home that had a garden and a kitchen at its centre – here, the home is the kitchen.

Its adjacent living area is envisioned as a kind of lean-to with views of the garden. On the other axis is the bedroom, housed in a converted garage that also plays second fiddle to the kitchen. The bathroom, meanwhile, was repositioned to occupy the verandah.

GROWTH MINDSET

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