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house of the tall chimneys: nominated for ‘world dwelling of the year’
Each year, Dwell Magazine hosts their prestigious Design Awards, selecting nominees based on their creative, context-driven designs. This year, Frankie Pappas has been nominated in the Dwellings division for the architectural design of House of the Tall Chimneys – a breath-taking guesthouse hidden among the trees of the African Bushveld.
conceiving house of the tall chimneys
The originating idea was to root the bathroom into the adjacent rockscape, so it would serve as a functional extension of the natural outcrop. The plan for the bedroom was developed with the already existing terrain in mind. It would open onto a spectacular treescape, inviting in the cool breeze, rustle of leaves, and calls of animal neighbours.
an architectural vision brought to life
We are thrilled that we were able to bring this ambitious project to life. The entire house was crafted to work with the landscape, so not a single tree was demolished. Now, House of the Tall Chimneys sits proudly in a private reserve in Waterberg, South Africa.
The real value of the building is in its capacity to get out of the way and ask you to be a part of something remarkable. It’s about waking up to vervet monkeys playing two meters from your bed, chacma baboons sunning themselves on the roof in the afternoon, and leopards walking beneath the building in the morning. It’s about how light filters through a saligna tree in summer, and how the air smells during a thunderstorm – these are quintessential Bushveld things, and we wanted this building to be a place to experience them.
If you think House of the Tall Chimneys deserves international recognition for its architectural design, vote for Frankie Pappas on Dwell’s website!
