14/10/2026
Some buildings carry more than function. They carry memory. 🏚️
The Bertha Retreat at Boschendal presented one of the most layered briefs we have worked with. Nine existing farm cottages — structures with minimal architectural value but profound cultural significance — needed to be transformed into a contemporary retreat without erasing what they represented.
Our response was not to demolish or disguise. It was to remember.
New spaces were displaced to fall outside the existing envelopes — creating zones that show the original fabric, acknowledge the cultural history of the people who once lived here, and mark the transition from what these buildings were to what they now are. Entrance and circulation zones reinforce this narrative at every threshold.
Adaptive reuse, at its best, does not pretend the past did not happen. It makes the past part of the architecture.
At Design Scape Architects, this is the kind of brief that reminds us why architecture matters beyond the building itself.
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