MOZAMBIQUE MODERN

With a nod to the modernists and an eye toward the contemporary, a couple designed and built an elegant oasis in tropical Mozambique.

- ALMA VIVIERS

Casper van der Merwe and Hein Visser have been living in the popular tourist Province of town of Tofo, in Inhambane south-eastern Mozambique for eight years.

The pair ran a guest house and restaurant there, but grew tired of the always-a-party lifestyle and wanted a little respite, a quiet oasis away from the hustle and bustle. They scourged the surroundings for a property and found it perched on a dune just outside Tofo, fringed by a lush mangrove forest that puts just enough space between them and the cosmopolitan town and popular beach.

"It is a massive dream that became reality," says Casper. "We spent a long time dreaming and envisioning what we wanted the house to look like, but also how the spaces needed to live. We made it very vivid for ourselves."

They imagined an elegant, clean-lined house where everything could open up. "With a superb climate such as this, you want to make the most of the outdoors," explains Hein. "We imagined features such as being able to fall out of bed and into the pool, or taking a bath outside."

Casper concurs: "Unlike the crammed, air-conditioned, low-ceiling concrete houses that we had been renting, we wanted to create this open space that gives you the feeling of being outdoors even when you are indoors." Casper counts some of the proponents of modernism such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Carlo Scarpa as inspiration. "The architecture in Inhambane really is incredibly beautiful," he explains. "It's all old concrete art deco and modernist buildings - I love the simple lines of the buildings."