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House Emary
Kenilworth, Cape Town, Western Cape
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| Designed by the architect for himself. The family for which this house was designed consists of a professor and his wife, two daughters and one son, approximately 17, 15 and 13 years old respectively. The family had lived at Southern Cross for many years and now sought smaller ground and house nearer friends, public transport and schools. The site is one of the last remaining few to be sub-divided from an old and large estate in Kenilworth. It is near to friends, transport and schools, but slopes to the south and is badly restricted by road-widening schemes and building lines. It is, however, secluded and in a well-wooded neighbourhood, with no distant view. The only definite requirements beyond the rooms shown were that each child should have a room large enough to take two beds, that mother and father should have their own bathroom and that all rooms should have as much sunlight as possible. Zoning plus flexibility led to the creation of a large living platform with a privately zoned bedroom wing on the east, the living rooms grouped around a patio and the services concentrated on the southwest corner and at a lower floor level. The bedrooms all face east while the master bedroom faces north and is contained in a semi-private suite. All living rooms are flexibly arranged around the patio so that any combination of rooms can be used during a party or for two differing functions. The living room is related to the garden while the study is related to the patio and has a visual link through the living room to the garden. Both study and dining room are visually linked through the hole in the roof to the large trees in the neighbourhood. The structure consists mainly of load-bearing walls with small window openings spanned by brick lintels. Larger openings have double, 4 in. [101 mm] by 3 in. [76 mm] timber beams to take sliding door gears and timber roof, these beams are supported by tubular steel columns. The roof was the major problem and is treated as a very low-pitched roof formed of 6 in. [152 mm] by 1 1/2 in. [38 mm] bearers with firring pieces and 4 in. T. &. G. boarding. A flush ceiling on 1 1/2 in. battens provides an average 9 in. [228 mm] air space above a foilboard ceiling which appears to float over the entire structure. The roof covering was to have been aluminium but for reasons of cost consists of three layers heavy asphalt sheeting aluminium painted. [Wale 1962:109-111] Books that reference House Emary
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