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Enclaved in the town of Barrydale, "Karoolkie Kelder" was built
as social focus for a new gentrification retreat and as social
interface with town and city (a significant tourist destination,
three hours from the nearest metropole and airport Cape Town). A
multifunctional social/performance space and wine cellar, the
social content of this building is its key; a shared public space
encouraging form-content narrative – hosting, passing on and
trading regional narratives, whilst renewing vernacular practices;
salvaging and renewing and re-employing remnant local ‘green’
skills, thus balancing renewal with tradition with urban
conservation whilst avoiding the retro-antique death-trap
(slavishly copying/ recycling out-dated forms)
Capped by a low-slung stone-clad descending roof, tall mud/slate
walls stand over the cellar footprint - a single volume, anchored
into a terraced vineyard 2 meters below grade. Echoing both
‘valley’ and ‘ridge’, the form both contains and is contained by
its landscape. |
