Celebrating Excellence: The House and Garden 2024 Designer of the Year Awards

The House and Garden Designer of the Year (DOTY) Awards for 2024 have honored a selection of extraordinary talent across various fields, from architecture and interior design to product design and art. This year’s winners have been recognized for their innovative approaches, commitment to sustainability, and significant contributions to their respective disciplines. Here’s a look at the standout honorees.

Restaurant Of The Year Award: Nic Charalambous of Ouzeri

Once a string of pop-ups, Ouzeri has become one of Cape Town’s must-visit spots on the city’s world-renowned restaurant scene. For design enthusiasts and epicureans alike, Ouzeri by Nic Charalambous infuses travel into Greek and Cypriot-inspired dishes that span modern flavours and old family recipes. What makes Ouzeri a cut above the rest is their exploration of Greek flavours that transcend the cliché, bridging the gap between familiar and experimental. Before booking your next meal, we recommend perusing the Ouzeri Spotify account for a sonic taster of what to expect.

Hotel Of The Year Award: Coot Club

At Coot Club, the world slows to the beat of simple pleasures; birdsong at first light, the warmth of the sun after a refreshing swim, long lazy lunches under ancient milkwoods, a crackling fire under the stars.

Nestled in 1 000 acres of private nature reserve on the shores of the Klein River Lagoon, the timber-lined interiors of Coot Club create a destination to reset from daily life and reconnect with nature. Inspired by the concept of a boathouse, the lodges ‘float in nature’ above the terrain on stilts with plentiful natural light and sailing nostalgia.

Home Of The Year Award: Salt Rock by Julia Rutherfoord Architect & Nikhil Tricam

When a home is surrounded by natural beauty, one can't help but immerse oneself in the tranquillity of the rustling forest and the serenity of the great outdoors. Together, architect Julia Rutherfoord and multidisciplinary designer Nikhil Tricam are not only friends but great business partners who spoke the same language when it came to collaborating on this Salt Rock project in KwaZulu-Natal, winner of DOTY 2024 House of the Year.

Tour the DOTY 2024 House of the Year here.

Architect Julia Rutherfoord has been designing contemporary, sustainable homes since 2010. Dedicated to creating "sustainable luxury" with a focus on environmental responsibility, Julia and her team utilises locally sourced materials and clean energy systems. Her homes not only meet the functional needs of their inhabitants but also reflect their unique stories, resulting in bespoke, contextually sensitive creations, tailored to its site and its residents.

For designer and architect Nikhil Tricam, his work — extending into the artistic world — focuses on the human relationships and experiences formed within, and against, the back-drop of the urban realm - with a focus on large scale ink and acrylic gestural works. Co-founder of Multidisciplinary design house Kalki Ceramics and Studio Kalki with Nindya Bucktowar, — winners of the 2023 Nando’s Hot Young Designer talent search — their practice marries a combined knowledge of ceramics and high-end hospitality.

Architect Of The Year Award: Sumayya Vally of Counterspace

Sumayya Vally is the principal of architecture and research practice, Counterspace. In 2021, she became the youngest architect ever commissioned for the Serpentine Pavilion where she was lauded as one of the most radical pavilion designs to shape the commission. She was Artistic Director of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, which marked a pivotal moment in reimagining the definition of Islamic art. A TIME100 Next list honoree, Vally has been identified as someone who will shape the future of architectural practice and pedagogy.

Product Designer Of The Year Award: Bofred

When Christa Botha and Carla Erasmus joined forces to found Bofred in Cape Town in 2014, it was rooted in a shared love of travel; a background in fine arts and shared sense of wanderlust and appreciation for beauty. This female-run furniture and lighting studio is perhaps best known for drawing from far-flung wells of inspiration to contribute to the growth and prosperity of skilled Cape Town makers, artisans, and manufacturers.

Combining modernist elements with authentic craft and storytelling, they seek to celebrate and showcase natural materials like wood, clay, stone, and metals, with each collection's colours and product names providing insight into the stories and memories that inspired it.

Interior Designer Of The Year Award: Fyfe Boyce

Fyfe Boyce Design, led by Bruce Fyfe and Kelsey Boyce, is known for its laid-back charm, friendly nature, and joyful energy. Not only is it recognized as one of today’s leading design firms for capturing each client’s unique personality, but they carefully create timeless interiors that celebrate living. With work spanning South Africa to as far away as the Bahama, the causal style of Fyfe Boyce hides a meticulous and purposeful approach to crafting authentic spaces that beg to be loved.

Landscape Designer Of The Year Award: Leon Kluge

Landscape designer Leon Kluge always knew plants were in his future with his grandfather as curator of the Betty’s Bay Botanical Garden and his father, the curator of the Lowveld National Botanical Gardens in Nelspruit where Leon spent his childhood. With a long list of celebrity clients and multiple awards to his name, Kluge also took home three top awards at the 2024 RHS Chelsea Flower show for ‘The Cape Flora of South Africa’ display, winning Gold, Best Exhibit in the Great Pavilion and New Design Award for the fynbos extravaganza with Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, a first for South Africa.

As a garden designer Leon’s inspiration doesn’t come from pictures or books but from walking and hiking in the mountains. Nature is his biggest teacher. To observe plants growing in their natural state is a masterclass in colour and texture, and how they combine to create mood.

Artist Of The Year Award: Lulama Wolf

Johannesburg-based artist Lulama Wolf’s practice is formulated by lines that rise and fall smoothly to create lithe bodies in space – bending, contorting, carrying, standing, and moving. Wolf’s depicted bodies indicate a world beyond themselves and signal towards broader themes and processes.

Traversing both the personal and the political, Lulama engages with themes of African spirituality within a contemporary context and merges that with colour theory influenced by traditional South African vernacular, architecture and indigenous rock art.

Lulama has exhibited not only on South African soil, but in Copenhagen, Athens and New York with artistic collaborations with Bang & Olufsen and H&M under her belt as well. Lulama’s work carries her spirit before it carries a message with intuition playing a vital role. Blackness is innate in her work because it is created by a black woman despite the medium or language it speaks. It is vital because proof of existence is rare in the Black community and information is shared but isn’t sustained in ways that are known to us right now.

Pan-African Designer Of The Year Award: Thabisa Mjo of Mash.T Design

Passionate about preserving traditional skills and helping other small businesses, Owner and founder of Mash.T Design Studio, Thabisa Mjo made her way into the design industry by entering the Nando’s Hot Young Designer Talent Search competition in 2015, which foreshadows to her now beloved pendant light with a contemporary forward-thinking South African twist. This year, Thabisa Mjo was invited to participate in Ventura Future at Salone del Mobile Milano, arguably the most important design fair in the world, where global visitors were invited to intimately pay attention to the details and the level of South African craftsmanship, which were elevated to create highly desirable pieces that adapt our cultural traditions ensuring the survival of vital skills that are shared with the next generation.

Sustainable Designer Of The Year Award: Laurie Wiid van Heerden of Wiid Designs

As a self-taught furniture and product designer, Laurie has been reimagining wood, ceramic, glass, steel, terrazzo, and of course, cork for more than a decade under the auspices of Wiid Design. From giant cork pendants that draw the eye upward to hand-blown amber glass tumblers designed to cradle perfectly in the palm of one’s hand, Wiid centres around a passion for materials and the tradition of craft, a curiosity for experimentation and revealing the artisanal soul and intimacy of the handmade. Part of what makes WIID Sustainable Designer of the Year is the shared value for the collaboration: The power of the collective means fewer boundaries, more opportunity and learnings. The excitement of building momentum comes from the creative community.

ICON Award: Southern Guild

With galleries in Cape Town and now Los Angeles, Southern Guild established by Trevyn and Julian McGowan, Southern Guild continues to place contemporary artists from Africa and its diaspora on the global stage.

With over a decade in investing in the growth of the African creative ecosystem, cultivating an ethos of cultural exchange and interconnectedness through its robust international fair and biennale programme, Southern Guild has played an important role in African works being acquired by many of the world’s most prestigious art institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and National Gallery of Victoria to name a few. If there is an African artist on your radar, it is likely Southern Guild had a role to play in that.

The DOTY 2024 Awards celebrate these remarkable individuals and organizations for their outstanding contributions to design, architecture, art, and sustainability. Each winner exemplifies excellence and innovation in their field, setting new standards and inspiring future generations.