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A formally dark and dingy three bedroom suburban house across the vlei from Muizenberg Mountain was completely transformed into a cozy cottage that takes full advantage of its ideal orientation and position on site.
INTERIOR FITOUT
Putter Kitchen
A split level home with unchallenged views over False Bay above Froggy Pond had been enlarged and expanded over the years resulting in a big house with no space. Some considered reconfiguration, addition of extensive deck...
ALTERATION TO EXISTING DWELLING
House Jewinson
A formally dark and dingy three bedroom suburban house across the vlei from Muizenberg Mountain was completely transformed into a cozy cottage that takes full advantage of its ideal orientation and position on site.
HOME GARDEN
Sunbird Cottage
Before Renovation
Seaforth Garden Cottage
Donné & Charl Atkinson
“Seaforth Cottage Garden was a personal passion project and my first opportunity to apply my spatial design skills to a real landscape albeit a small one. It presented a huge learning curve for me, transforming a rubble filled, neglected sand dune into a thriving, ecologically healthy and productive garden. It was this project with all the incredible feedback it received that gave me the confidence to expand my design offering to outdoor spaces. It is the temporal and ever changing nature of landscape design that excites me most about it, seasonal change, succession and unpredictability of nature is both a challenge and a joy with which to work.”
DONNÉ & CHARL
About
The move out to the southern peninsula afforded, SPACE + FIELD principal, Donné Atkinson to, at last, begin to apply into practice the theory around building soil, improving biodiversity and creating conditions conducive to life, learnt over years of passionate self study and research. This small yet unexpected coastal garden was transformed from rubble filled sand dune to productive and beautiful oasis to original Victorian semidetached cottage in Simons
PROJECT TYPE:
Home garden
CLIENT
Donné & Charl Atkison
LOCATION
Simons Town, Cape Town
This small and mostly indigenous and yet highly productive garden was developed incrementally over a period of 2 years with every aspect of the project undertaken by Donné Atkinson, architect and aspiring landscape designer with input from friend and mentor, Paul Barker, permaculturist and now Head Gardener at Arderne Gardens in Cape Town. It starting with vision of transforming the bare and sandy slope into a series of terraced outdoor rooms which adds depth and complexity, giving the illusion of a much larger garden and emphasizing the mountain view behind. The garden has a rigorous and geometric structure with the exception of the garden path which curves lazily through the “rooms”.
This small and mostly indigenous and yet highly productive garden was developed incrementally over a period of 2 years with every aspect of the project undertaken by Donné Atkinson, architect and aspiring landscape designer with input from friend and mentor, Paul Barker, permaculturist and now Head Gardener at Arderne Gardens in Cape Town. It starting with vision of transforming the bare and sandy slope into a series of terraced outdoor rooms which adds depth and complexity, giving the illusion of a much larger garden and emphasizing the mountain view behind. The garden has a rigorous and geometric structure with the exception of the garden path which curves lazily through the “rooms”.
“Seaforth Cottage Garden was a personal passion project and my first opportunity to apply my spatial design skills to a real landscape albeit a small one. It presented a huge learning curve for me, transforming a rubble filled, neglected sand dune into a thriving, ecologically healthy and productive garden. It was this project with all the incredible feedback it received that gave me the confidence to expand my design offering to outdoor spaces. It is the temporal and ever changing nature of landscape design that excites me most about it, seasonal change, succession and unpredictability of nature is both a challenge and a joy with which to work..”
DONNÉ & CHARL
This small and mostly indigenous and yet highly productive garden was developed incrementally over a period of 2 years with every aspect of the project undertaken by Donné Atkinson, architect and aspiring landscape designer with input from friend and mentor, Paul Barker, permaculturist and now Head Gardener at Arderne Gardens in Cape Town. It starting with vision of transforming the bare and sandy slope into a series of terraced outdoor rooms which adds depth and complexity, giving the illusion of a much larger garden and emphasizing the mountain view behind. The garden has a rigorous and geometric structure with the exception of the garden path which curves lazily through the “rooms”.
Soil improvement strategies including green manures, cover crops, on site composting and vermiculture were applied and no soil was imported to the site. Wind breaks in the form of living hedges were established first to protect new plants and more delicate food plants from the blast of the SE winds in the summertime and slowly over time the garden developed and grew, morphing as dictated by natural succession of plants over time. Several shrubs are entirely self-established and thrive as conditions that were created through the design and early implementation strategies supported them to do so.
The garden requires very little management and almost no water aside from grey water from shower and washing machine and rain water reserved for food gardens. It is a haven to small wildlife including snakes, lizards and skinks as well as birds.
It has been a place of great joy and many lessons for a self taught landscaper and is a fine example of how even the most hopeless looking suburban back yard can become a resilient, biodiverse and beautiful landscape.