Great Heights
Great Heights
Great Brak River, Western Cape,
South Africa
Project Summary
Great Heights was a living experiment conceived and developed by Daniela Puccini and me. The aim was to explore a piece of neglected land with zero infrastructure and make it live-able at extremely low cost. The secondary aim was to start the transition from a piece of land overrun with invasive, alien tree species to a mixed indigenous and edible plant species mix.
We developed the design for the tiny house dubbed ‘The Coup’ and it was installed in November 2017, which became our home for the next five months.
Duration of project: November 2017 - April 2018
Credits
Daniela Puccini – Co-designer
Apex Wood World, George – Construction of ‘The Coup’
Aluplan Architectural Aluminium – Window Suppliers for ‘The Coup’
My Role
Product Design
House Design
Landscape Design
Ecological Restoration
Holistic management
A terrace was created by levelling the ground outside the entrance to the coup so that a comfortable, spacious outdoor area could be enjoyed and used. The terrace then lead to the first ‘orchard’, just visible in the background.
Pictured left: Initial sketches for what would become ‘the studio’. A lofty roofed space designed and built with our own hands from wood harvested from the property. Pictured right: Harvesting and preparing fresh cut Australian Blue gum poles to be used later for ‘the studio’.
