Jaco Booyens Architect
  • Projects
    • Buffelsdrift Gold Medal Domus International Restoration Awards
    • Contemporary Mud House Buffelsdrift
    • Buffelsdrift Renovation
    • Buffelsdrift Staircase
    • Buffelsdrift Pumproom
    • Subsistance Farm Rysmierberg
    • Damaraland Clay Project
    • Big Tiny House Glencairn
    • Project Phoenix
    • Walvisbay Container Terminal Entrance
    • CAM Plywood Structure
    • Fort Haasbroek Swakopmund
    • Rammed Earth Desert House Swakopmund
    • Off the grid house Prieska
    • New BP Green Headquarters Cape Town
    • African trade mission in Rome
    • Vertical Village on the River Tyber
    • Staircase house du Plessis
    • Olijven Hof brick vault Montagu
    • Cape Town Offgrid Scyscraper
    • Gate to industrial park
    • Furniture design
    • Thesis 1996 - Emergency center for earthquakes
  • Design Philosophy
  • About
  • Publications
  • Sketchbook
Big Tiny House Glencairn

This big tiny house is for client Pierre Henry van der Spuy and is still 
in its planning stage. Pierre is an urban farmer and freelance 
photographer and off-grid and self-sufficiency enthusiast. The site 
is on a steep north facing slope close to Fishhoek a fishing village 
on the Cape Town peninsula.  

The current design is the  3rd revision of previous designs that started 
off as a building with a steel framed structure with infill mud walls. The 
building evolved into its final stage becoming smaller and smaller. A 
strict modular composite panel system including insulation based on 
uncut 1220x2440 plywood sheets fits inside a pre-manufactured steel 
framed, thus optimising cost, wastage and enabling quick assembly 
on site.  The building has a final Corten steel finish with random 
perforations overlapping doors and windows. The pattern was generated 
by Grasshopper and Rhino algorithmic software.

The building services are all off-grid with onsite rainwater harvesting, 
a methane gas digester for cooking fed by the urban farms waste 
materials and solar/wind hybrid for electricity generation. 
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  • Projects
    • Buffelsdrift Gold Medal Domus International Restoration Awards
    • Contemporary Mud House Buffelsdrift
    • Buffelsdrift Renovation
    • Buffelsdrift Staircase
    • Buffelsdrift Pumproom
    • Subsistance Farm Rysmierberg
    • Damaraland Clay Project
    • Big Tiny House Glencairn
    • Project Phoenix
    • Walvisbay Container Terminal Entrance
    • CAM Plywood Structure
    • Fort Haasbroek Swakopmund
    • Rammed Earth Desert House Swakopmund
    • Off the grid house Prieska
    • New BP Green Headquarters Cape Town
    • African trade mission in Rome
    • Vertical Village on the River Tyber
    • Staircase house du Plessis
    • Olijven Hof brick vault Montagu
    • Cape Town Offgrid Scyscraper
    • Gate to industrial park
    • Furniture design
    • Thesis 1996 - Emergency center for earthquakes
  • Design Philosophy
  • About
  • Publications
  • Sketchbook