Prince Albert, the ‘karoo village’, some 400km north-east of Cape Town is surrounded by dramatic mountain landscape with the towering Swartberg to the south, separating the Great & Little Karoo. A town of 8 000 inhabitants with numerous historic and original Cape Dutch, Karoo and Victorian buildings, it enjoys a consistent climate of high sunshine and spectacular night skies and although located in an arid region, the ‘continual’ flow of water from the looming Swartberg, channelled through ‘leiwater’ furrows make it somewhat of a ‘karoo oasis’.

The variety of local farming generates much in the way of produce, which, together with the weekly Saturday market, yearly Olive Festival and emerging array of restaurants and coffee shops have resulted in the town’s growing status as a ‘foodie destination’.

This as background, African Relish was conceived by the Client as a culinary tourism destination. The site, approximately 4000 square metres in extent is home to an existing 153 year old ‘Langhuis’, of simple form and structure, dominating the frontage onto Church street, the town’s main road. The Culinary school occupies the area of site between the existing building and the recently planted olive orchard extending to the east of the property. Site position means the two buildings remain independent, maintaining the hierarchical importance of the Langhuis, but connecting formally and informally by way of the open spaces in between, the obvious site axes and the re-formalised circulation routes previously existent on the site.

From Church Street the impact of the culinary school is deliberately negligible. The building is simple in nature and looks to acknowledge, whilst re-interpret the vernacular of Karoo town building forms in a contemporary way. It’s single storey volume ‘nestles’ close to the natural fall of the land, mimicking the ‘squatness’ of scale of the residential typology evident throughout the town. It makes use of simple inclined roof planes and vertically dominant chimney flues and parapet profiles to internally accentuate the vertical proportion to the main cooking hall, whilst at the same time capturing high level light and views, both to the north and south.

The accommodation brief is four–part, with the primary spaces of cooking, servicing and lounging arranged to form a central dining court. Covered ‘stoeps’ and walkways allow for connection between interior & exterior and provide some respite from what can be extreme heat and harsh sunlight in the summer months. The Dining Court turns it’s back on the prevailing southern winds and is flexible to both shut down or open up to the sky above and formalised landscape, herb gardens and lounging lawns extending to the north. Elements of earth, fire and water form the focal points along this primary axis. An essential part of the Client brief was to make the building ‘film friendly’ as filming in kitchens can be difficult due to distance and fixed object constraints. Internally the spaces are light, spacious and lofty, almost empty, generating a need to occupy and celebrate the cooking/dining experience.

It is testament to both the committed involvement of Client and Contractor that the building was realised with only minor changes to the conceptual proposal, minimal layout & detail documentation, on a relatively nominal budget.