Issue 54 - Between Sand and Sky

Ten hours away from Buenos Aires is a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, called Cabo Polonio. For the few in the know, "El Cabo" is a favourite Summertime getaway, and two young Buenos Aireans have built themselves a cottage to do just that.



Page 112 - 119 of Elle Deco SA show you some of the vast duned spaces around the tiny one-roomed cottage, but here on the blog we've got some of the more intimate landscapes to show you.

Issue 54 - National Geographic

Neil Stemmet of Koncept Design and Architecture has built himself an extraordinary beachside home at De Kelders on the Cape south coast. Mark Williams' pics on pages 94 -103 are already quite dizzying, but if you're ready for more, dive right in...

The interior is filled with a lifetime of collections, and also amazing textured surfaces, like the feature wall made of sections of branches.

Striking blocks of colour are a feature of the house. Just look at those amazing kitchen blue tiles and the deep red curtain and sofa in the living room.

My favourite colour statement is those blocks of well-thumbed National Geographic magazines on Neil's curiosity-filled shelves.

Outside, the house has been carefully designed to work with the natural environment, with a low-maintenance indigenous garden, and smart use of recycled and re-used materials wherever possible.

Along the sea-facing side of the house, a canal runs the length, cooling the house and bouncing reflections onto the interior walls.

The good news is theres still more to come from the marvellously Issue 54 before the week is up, so check in again soon.

PS: Neil also has a beautiful apartment right in the centre of Cape Town. Check it out here.

Issue 54 - Trunk Call

Our cover story this month is about Chris Tate's amazing glass box house deep in the dense New Zealand rain forest.The house has no driveway access, with just a slim timber staircase snaking down into the forest ravine to reach the deck.


Inside, the house is all clean lines and a simple palette of black and white, broken by vibrant dashes of lime green.


Love the green Leaf chairs by Lievore Altherr Molina for Arper, and the slatted timber Glide chaise by David Trubridge.

Find out more about this house that manages to marry style and sensitivity to the environment so well by visiting Chris Tate's website.

Issue 54 - House of Spirit

If you have the latest issue of Elle Decoration SA, I'm sure you were enchanted as I was by the beautiful home of Cape Town architect, Victoria Perry on pages 104 - 111.

Victoria's Sea Point cottage was so charming that our photographer Mickey Hoyle couldn't stop snapping away! We ran out of pages in the magazine, but have lots more dreamy pics to show you here.

Victoria's Isamu Noguchi coffee table takes centre stage in the living room, and she displays books and treasures on the concrete plinth that also doubles as additional seating.

In the magazine, you'll see that Victoria has her own swing in the garden, and this element of girly fun is evident in her bedroom too, where she has an adorable collection of quirky softies.

I'm sure I can spot one or too Woo-men amongst them.

A confessed ceramics nut, Victoria has a wonderful collection, including handpainted tiles and retro treasures.

You can spot a bit of Signal Hill from the balcony, which is a great place to unwind on a balmy Cape Town day.

What a beautiful home. I hope it gives you lots of inspiration for yours too. It's important to dream, after all...

Guest blogger - Jan van Mol

We're very please to welcome as our guest blogger for this week, the Belgian design dynamo, Jan van Mol, who is the visionary behind Addict Creative Labs, and Addictlab.com.

Jan's vision forAddictlab.com is a global creative laboratory that attracts multidisciplinary creative talent from all over the world, providing a bridge between that talent and industry that needs innovation.

Browse through one of the 25 Ad!dict Inspiration books he's published, to see some of the amazing work coming out of Addict Labs. You can read more about his latest publication in an article on Page 70 of the latest issue of Elle Decoration SA.


We're most fortunate to have such an out-of-the-box thinker in South Africa, finding and nurturing our design talent from the bottom up. I can't wait to see what inspires his creative thinking and energy while he guest blogs for Elle Deco. Thanks, Jan!

Issue #54 - Refresh

The brand new edition of Elle Decoration is on the shelves today all over South Africa, filled with refreshing news around the theme of Green.


Get it while it's hot... or in this case ...cool!