Heritage Cases

The existing house at 141 Smiso Nkwanyana Road does not provide sufficient bedrooms for the owner's family. The proposal is to extend the accommodation of the house into the roofspace, with minimal changes to the roof. The existing ridge height is maintained, but the ridge is extended in the direction of the view - to the South-East, to provide more volume for a main bedroom, and hence a gable end to replace the existing hip. The other accommodation is housed under the existing roof with raked roof-windows for light and ventilation. The existing lean-to roof over the enclosed veranda would be replaced with a waterproofed roof slab to provide a balcony off the main bedroom. The enclosed veranda will be altered slightly on the ground floor with sliding/folding doors opening onto an existing deck. The house was originally constructed in 1930 and is part of a fairly dense grouping of smaller, hipped, tile-roofed, 'Lower-Morningside' houses around the (previously) Goble Road, Percy Osborne, Windemere Rd area. Minor changes have been made to it since then (addition of a pool, deck, carport and some changes to door and window openings, including repositioning the front door). The form of the house to the street side will be unchanged by the alteration. On the view-facing side (not seen from the street), a gable end will replace the original roof hip to provide a wall for a door opening onto a small balcony extending over the existing enclosed veranda, overlooking the garden and pool. The gable end will be clad in a ship-lapped fibre-cement boarding to maintain a light aesthetic as part of the roof element of the house.