Amenzee

Amenzee is an estate at St Helena Bay where the same house must work twice: locked up and left in July, full to the walls in December. The house types take the West Coast vernacular at its most useful — white plaster, pitched metal roofs, stone yard walls that hold off the southerly wind — and organise the plan so a couple can live in half of it without the other half feeling shut.

Inside, one tall living hall does the work of three rooms: an open truss ceiling, a built fireplace at its centre, and the kitchen and dining held in the same volume. It is the winter room of a summer house.