NATURAL GLAMOUR

A JUXTAPOSITION OF TEXTURES, SPACE ΑΝD COLOUR MAKES THIS STEYN CITY PENTHOUSE APARTMENT A HAVEN FROM BUSY CITY LIFE WHILE PROVIDING SWEEPING VIEWS OF THE JOHANNESBURG SKYLINE.

- MICHAELA STEHR

SPACE . . .It’s the first thing you notice when you walk into this striking penthouse apartment on the top floor of one of the Steyn City blocks in Johannesburg’s “new North”. The high ceilings give a first impression of an expansive home, rather than the typical boxy square found on other estates around the city. “We needed to get height into the apartment,” explains architect Lesley Carstens, who worked on the project with her partner, architect Silvio Rech, and interior designers Nabeela Abdul-Karrim and Nina Roux.

“The ceiling heights were initially quite low,” says Silvio. “We could not change the window heights, but we pushed the engineers and architects to raise our ceilings as high as possible.” To add to the feeling of space, the team made all the door and wall panels reach from floor to ceiling, and opened the spaces to create a feeling of flow rather than settle for closed-off rooms.