Ginkgo.

Ginkgo is the revival of a heritage-listed apartment in Kenilworth, Cape Town, completed in 2023. Set within Kenmain Gardens, an Art Deco apartment complex dating to the late 1930s, the project began with a careful reading of the existing apartment and the qualities that gave it its character.

The apartment had good bones from the beginning: generous proportions, original timber floors, Art Deco doors and ironmongery, coved ceilings, and views into the shared garden court. The brief was to modernise the apartment while retaining the material character that first made the space compelling.

The revised plan works with the structure of the existing building. Archways and thresholds create a sequence of connected rooms, allowing the apartment to feel open without losing its original sense of depth and privacy. The kitchen is linked to the living area but slightly removed from it, giving the home a more layered and comfortable rhythm than a conventional open-plan layout.

Original elements were retained and restored wherever possible. Hardwood floors were exposed, timber windows and doors were refurbished, and timber from the original linen cupboards was reused in the new wall panelling and kitchen joinery.

The project is named for the surviving Ginkgo tree in the garden below — one of several trees brought back from Japan by an early inhabitant of the complex. Through the seasons, the tree becomes a changing backdrop to the life of the apartment.

Ginkgo is a study in careful alteration: a modest interior project shaped by heritage, daily life and the quiet craft of working with what is already there.