Malindi & Providence

The two houses are built for the same client, the larger house is the main family home and the the smaller house will be accommodate an artist’s studio on the upper ground floor level, and an apartment for visitors and family at lower ground floor level.

Both house are built into the slope of the hillside, to reduce the impact on the landscape and to avoid blocking the view from the houses further up the hillside, so that the houses appear as a single storey on the road side and two storey on the seaward side.

The fully glazed southern elevations of the houses and highly insulated, high-mass construction has helped to create two passive solar-gain houses.

To prevent overheating in summer, the southern elevation is set back behind hardwood verandas that provide full-width balconies at upper ground floor level and protect the interiors from the high summer sun while allowing the much lower winter sun to penetrate deep into the two houses.

The external cladding, roof decking and veranda structures are all made from FSC-certified hardwood, which has been left unfinished to weather naturally to a silvery grey.