Preview - A House Built Around a Bougainvillea

The bougainvillea had been growing on the south wall of the house for sixty years. It was, when I first visited, clearly the most important thing on the property. My clients agreed. The entire renovation was organised around its continued existence.

We opened the south-facing ground floor to a terrace sheltered by the plant, which now grows along a steel trellis we had made specifically to support it. The rooms inside follow the same logic as the plant: they grow toward the light, they are full of colour in the flowering months, and they are quietly themselves the rest of the year. It is a house that smells of jasmine and pine resin and something I have never been able to identify, which is the smell of Athens in late spring.

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