Tg Architects
Accommodation Services in Pretoria

Our expertise lies in the design of exclusive contemporary residences, holiday houses, lodges, and selective commercial projects.
Generated from a sensitive response to context and individual client requirements is our main objective.
We are an architecture + interior consultancy operating throughout south africa from our design studio in pretoria.

Founded in 2002, the award winning architectural practice Thomas Gouws Architects operates throughout South Africa from their design studio in Pretoria. The main house contains the family living spaces and bedrooms, while the outbuilding is a home office on the ground floor and a guest bedroom space on the first floor. The main house consists of three volumes and one enters the house into the first open and transparent volume of the living and entertainment spaces. It shields and defines the living space, southern entrance courtyard and northern outdoor living space. The double volume also acts as light shaft filling the ground floor living spaces with natural light. The separate wings of the house each forms a separate functional zone and were placed around a courtyard. The southern wing contains the living areas, while the more private northern wing houses the bedrooms. The staircase placed in a concrete box forms a transitional space which connects the living area level with the northern bedroom wing. The house was designed with a more solid southern street façade to create privacy, while it opens up onto the natural landscape on the northern side. Stone from the site was used to construct these walls, linking the building to its neighbouring natural landscape. Supporting service spaces are situated on the southern side of the living area. Inspired by the simple agricultural barn structures found in the area, the steel roof structure with galvanized sheeting (for both ceiling and covering) brings an industrial element to the design and contrasts with the otherwise modernist stone, masonry and concrete structure. They are separated from the living space but still live out onto the garden. With the garden design architectural elements like platforms, terraces and articulated garden steps are used to extend the building outdoors and to form a transition between the house and the natural landscape. The design aimed to capture the raw beauty and simplicity of traditional South African farm architecture in a modernist and contemporary way. Thus the house was designed as a single-storey structure, low slung and in the form of a simple H-plan, creating two courtyard spaces. The first is used as an entrance space and the second as an outdoor living area with a pool. Both look straight through the northern wing and connect with its view to the hills beyond. To achieve this openness, steel was the obvious choice as the main structural material, freeing the walls to be transparent and adjustable. However, the element is not bound by the edge of the house, but continious past it to an outdoor living area. With the modern art loving owners in mind, the design was based on opening up the existing rooms of the house and purifying it into an airy, functional art gallery-like living space. A central double volume living area forms the heart of the house, which opens up onto both courtyards and also connects the side wings with supporting services and bedrooms. Texture & colour were used throughout the house to accentuate separate design elements. The building form is composed of two simple pitch-roofed structures linked by a double volume living area.