‘When I was going through the material, it was interesting to find some projects that Ian had worked on in the 1980s and then again 20 years later when he was asked to refresh them, to look at them again. Paradise Motors was one of these projects. This was the first time that a petrol station was actually treated as a design project rather than something purely functional and he won an award for it. Up until this point, petrol stations were just petrol stations. Very little design thought went into them. But because this petrol station was located within the tree-filled residential environment of Newlands, it called for a different approach. His design included the planting of trees, low ‘werf’ walls, paved brickwork instead of just asphalt surfacing… Obviously we’ve come a long way since then, but this project clearly demonstrates the intention of making a functional space responsive to its context.’ – David Gibbs