An hour-long conversation with Philippe Fouché, Principal of the South African firm SAOTA had me immersed in the process and practice of a company that, though based in Cape Town, creates works that resonate with the global audience. Elaborately geometric forms with artful contemporary amenities perched on a hilltop or cocooned within a forest define new ways of habitation and a meeting point between an oft-untouched nature and the built form. Fouche tells STIR what he thinks makes the company's DNA, why single residential villas remain central to SAOTA’s body of work and why a certain generalisation is essential in developing the identity of the practice.

The following excerpts from the interview have been edited for clarity and length.

Zohra Khan: You started this conversation with what you liked about New Delhi and how you find a sense of place here. I was wondering since your practice is based in Cape Town in South Africa, what is it that you think is a recurring emotion or an aspect—derived from the place, its culture and context—that resonates with every project?

Philippe Fouché: I think it’s a question we've often asked ourselves. Cape Town, for instance, has a very specific lifestyle. And a lot of our projects that gained traction internationally were projects that were based in Cape Town. I think people were attracted to just the lifestyle aspect, the idea that buildings can open up completely to the outdoors. And, of course, the projects that you're building in Cape Town, you can't build elsewhere. For instance, in Switzerland, many years ago, buildings had small openings and very low floor-to-ceiling heights, and only in the last half-century, technology has allowed people to build much more contemporary buildings than in Europe.

Europe is one of the areas where I focus a lot of my attention. But similarly, in India, I think you've got opposite problems. You've got heat and humidity, that you need to protect yourself against. And of course, the simplest way is to create fewer openings and less connection with the outside, but what we find is in many of these places, people still are drawn to that aspect of our work, trying to create larger opening spaces, larger volumes. And I think that's been a part of our story, the work that we used to do but only do in South Africa, the internet allowed us to put the message out there. And people are responding to that.

Zohra: Under the arsenal of SAOTA comes a diversity of works but I see a certain emphasis on residential projects. The monograph Light Space Life presents a series of houses built by the firm over the years. How do you break the mould of coming across as having a certain style? As a practice, how do you get away or distance yourself from getting bored of working with the same typology over and over again?

Philippe: I think the single residential villas have been important for our company, and we've learnt a lot through designing them over the last 37 years. It's seemingly built into our DNA, this care that goes into every corner of the building. We've used houses to explore many architectural ideas. Some of that has pulled over into some of the resorts and hotels that we are busy with. Even in the larger commercial projects, we try and bring some of that sensibility to the way we look at it. Of course, we'd love to expand our horizons, but I can never say that we don't love building single residential villas. It's well known to be one of the harder fields to be in because it's very emotional.

On one hand, you can see it as a challenge, but on the other, you can see it as a massive advantage, because when I look at each of the houses that we've designed, I see the presence not only of the place but also of the clients. Those relationships matter and you build those relationships. Clients become friends over time, and you feel it in the work that you do. So that in itself is quite exciting, to be working on these extraordinary houses. Many of the most extraordinary projects that we've done, we can't even show them to the public because they're completely embargoed, and we value the client’s privacy. I think the reality is that single residential projects have allowed us to experiment and push boundaries in architecture that maybe in, large commercial projects, one can't.

Being out of place is also a response to the context, and some projects call for it – Philippe Fouché

Zohra: Have there been instances where you have come across a project and a site that feels it is devoid of a sense of place? How do you navigate such situations?

Philippe: We are blessed that we often work on sites where there are fantastic views. But now and then we've been confronted with a situation where there's no view, and you kind of stand on the site and wonder what you're going to respond to. I think one’s philosophy changes a little bit here, in a sense, that you want to create another kind of world, and there's a little bit of freedom to that. But even those sites are still in a place where there are cultural references. For me, that has been some of the most important and interesting opportunities where the contextual canvas was blank, and where you can explore other themes of how you create this world typically for family, for instance. To do that, you need to understand the family a lot better and understand what it is that you want to achieve through the architecture. I think it's a different approach. And very often if you look at the work that we are doing, we are responding to things in the distance, responding to views, responding to immediate things in the context. But in a case like that, I think the excitement is in almost inventing some of these worlds within that paradigm. And we've had a handful of projects where we've had to do that, and we don't shy away from that opportunity either.

Zohra: You spoke extensively about how the projects at SAOTA weave the context in. One building that I came across—the Kingsway Tower office building in Lagos, Nigeria—has a screen façade that draws close references from the shape of tropical leaves. Wouldn’t you say for an urban setting like this, the reference is out of place? What I am coming at is to inquire whether there have been project(s) in which you turned the narrative upside down and designed something that appeared out of place.

Philippe: Being out of place is also a response to the context, and some projects call for it. And in that specific instance, there was no other building like that in Lagos at that point. For us, it was a new territory as well, because we haven't previously designed towers and such large commercial projects. So we had an opportunity to do something that looked nothing like anything around it. But again, we wanted to find something that inspires us, because you can build a building that absolutely has no soul and purely just houses the people in it and functions very successfully. But that's not exciting to us. We always try to bring something of a narrative to the work that we're doing that drives some thoughts and maybe sometimes challenges the environment. The first hotel that we built in Dakar, Senegal, there was nothing like that ever. And now many buildings look very similar to that, but at the time, it was really responding to those things that you find in nature. More than it did to the immediate surroundings, it changed forever the face of that coast. Of course, when we were designing it, we didn't realise that it would have that impact. We just did what we normally do and took the ideas or the lessons that we've learned in previous projects and applied them.

Zohra: A recurring aspect in many of SAOTA buildings is horizontality. Continuous longitudinal forms, large roof spreads, and unstratified volumes take centre stage. Does this tendency arrive out of the constraints of the site or is it a style that the architectural practice gravitates towards?

Philippe: I think, without generalising, many of our projects have that. I think there are many different ways of looking at it, but for me, there's a kind of calmness of having an unobstructed horizon line without columns. I think that's quite exciting as an idea. And very often that horizontality comes through in our projects. We work with fantastic engineers who know how to make those columns not be there and help us to make it a reality in our projects. Especially if you have a site like so many of our projects in Cape Town, you want to be able to sit in that space and feel like you are part of that view, and that natural setting, in a very visceral way. And we would fight to the bone to try and emit anything disturbing that connection, with what you see around, especially on those extraordinary sites, because those sites, to begin with, were quite expensive, and you want to make the most of whatever you find there.

Zohra: I feel there’s a certain homogeneity when it comes to the materiality of projects. What do you think? 

Philippe: I would like to think that we don't have a kind of recipe for the material selection. We look more at the surroundings when we choose our materials and try to elevate the experience of the surroundings when we’re on a site. But naturally, any project is so personal and very often the client preferences play a massive role in materiality. We try and do the right thing in terms of sourcing materials that are easily available from any site, but very often our clients expect a certain material that sometimes has to come from much further fields. One needs to be a little sensitive to that and more flexible, trying to make the best that you can with material selection.

I think a lot of our finished projects were designed 10-15 years ago and we are definitely moving into a new era where people are much more conscious of where things come from and how they are made. Every time you decide in terms of materials, you need to make it very responsibly. Over the last decade or so, one can argue that this has been a massive driving force going forward in how we choose materials. It's not about the aesthetics only, you know? But ironically, so often, if you look at the project that we did in Sabi Sand, what was interesting there was that those materials fitted the place, and felt quite natural there because they were of the place. So sometimes you're lucky that you can actually source beautiful materials not too far away from the site. I think there are those opportunities out there, and we just have to fight for them, try and convince our clients sometimes that it’s not always the Italian model.

Zohra: In many of the residential projects by SAOTA, there are little moments that one finds within the built form where each space appears quite framed, in a very refined, artful way. It’s as if every little space within a house is a place in itself. What drives the design of putting these moments together?

Philippe: I think it's allowing ourselves to be conscious of what's around us and framing some instances. In the Western province and Cape Town, we, for instance, have whales that you see in the ocean. One of my business partners has massive windows in his house and many beautifully framed small windows that look out towards the ocean. He says that it's interesting to him that he has seen more wells through the small window than through the large windows because your attention as a human being is focused there. For me, it's about balance. Some spaces need to be smaller and more intimate with small punctured framed openings, and others can be large and generous and allow nature to spill into the experience.

But sometimes there's that balancing act that very often allows us to choreograph an experience. I think one of the things that our clients very often say is that they end up having these villas where they feel comfortable as a couple but also comfortable opening up the doors and allowing 50 to 80 guests to occupy the space. I think the biggest compliment you can give us is that we manage to create spaces that have a kind of barefoot luxury without feeling like a museum. We strive for it.

Zohra: Landscape design is constantly in dialogue with architecture as it intervenes in remote and often virgin locations. What synergy defines this collaboration?

Philippe: Landscape design definitely has a key role in our projects. Our buildings generally open up to the landscape, for us, it's wonderful to have an opportunity to play a role in what people see when they look out or when they are sitting outside. When we build, we want to give nature a chance to restore the building. I think it's important and quite fun to allow vegetation to take over spaces again, because if we had started doing that a hundred years ago, we may have been in a very different situation now. Just align wherever humans touch the land, give another opportunity for landscaping to come into the experience or onto that land that you've now scarred. I think that's an exciting idea and prospect to go forward with.

Zohra: What are some of the projects that SAOTA is currently working on?

Philippe: We there's busy building a resort now in Sindia, which is outside of Dakar, which in itself is quite exciting because this part of town is outside of the city and close to the new airport, and is developing quite rapidly. It is under construction at the moment and some phases have been completed and we are now quite excited to see the next part of the project coming to fruition. And then we've got multiple projects throughout Europe that are coming close to completion.

In India, we have a number of multi-generational family houses that we are building. We have projects in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and its surrounding vicinities. In Pune, we are doing a high-rise structure, and in Mumbai, we were recently commissioned to do a mid-rise apartment building.

Zohra: What is NEXT for SAOTA?

Philippe: On a day-to-day basis, what excites me is the new people joining us. It's not just South Africans working for us; we are now looking at talent across the globe. I think that in itself is quite exciting, seeing how those creatives and their experiences drive the way forward. It shouldn't just be a project or a company about the founders. It should be about the future of the company as well. And then I think we are constantly in this pursuit of improving our work. Nowadays we have weekly group sessions where we critique one another's projects, which of course, as you can imagine is very often quite a difficult process, but as a result, what excites me is that we are learning from one another.

Collaboration is very important for us because very often when we present our work to clients, we are ready for the questions because we've seen it through different lenses. I think that for me has been made possible because we have the flexibility of working from home, which is a massive shift that arose during the pandemic when we were all home-bound. We help and work with one another to find solutions, and I think we have only started scratching the surface on that level of collaboration.>

Zohra: What is NEXT for you?

Philippe: It sounds like a contrived answer, but I think India will play a massive role in the future of my team which works in West Africa and Europe. Of course, at the moment, Europe's a little quieter due to the geopolitical movements. We have been lucky that India has become a platform for us to express our work and the country will play a strong role. So I see myself certainly spending more time in India.