2. ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS
The building’s ground-level design has been conceived to open up as much as possible to its surroundings, with fluid and dynamic spaces, as if they had been eroded over time by trajectories, paths and sightlines. The result is a unified, soft and light-filled space, in constant dialogue with the city. Urban and architectural dimensions merge in a space rich in greenery and life, pierced at its centre by the internal courtyard, through which the intermediate square above is revealed. Even the façade’s skin appears to be the result of a slow process of erosion, as if a fluid had gradually carved out the vertical slits between the slats of the sunshades and the deep, opaque, splayed bands that open out towards the city. The alternation of slat bands with the vertical, splayed recesses lends the architectural façade a slender and elegant, almost musical pattern. The volume seems to expand into the surrounding space; it seems to breathe, opening up and dematerialising within the context, into which it simultaneously appears to blend.
3. FUNCTIONS
The large basement cavern raises the building above street level, creating the URBAN SQUARE, a large, unified space seamlessly integrated with the city, which can be enjoyed in its areas for meeting, resting and relaxing, but which can also be crossed and traversed freely from any direction.
The large supporting pillars serve simultaneously as the structure, the architectural façade and ACCESS POINTS to the upper levels.
Between the urban square and the upper levels, however, lies an INTERMEDIATE SQUARE, designed to house a number of neighbourhood services, including a nursery, a library and a café, all set within a large open-plan space characterised by a double-height ceiling overlooking the urban square and tiered seating for socialising and musical and theatrical events.
Above the intermediate square lies the RESIDENTIAL block, organised according to a ‘linear’ layout, that is, with stairwells and vertical lifts serving two or three residential units. The apartment layouts vary in both size and type to meet as diverse a range of demand as possible, in line with Durban’s needs.
A portion of the upper block is set aside for OFFICES, mostly double-height open-plan spaces characterised on the ground floor by large, flexible tables for teamwork and social areas, with views through the large windows towards the courtyard’s roof gardens, whilst the actual offices are situated on the mezzanine level. Conference rooms and administrative/executive offices are situated at either end of the building.
4. BIOCLIMATIC ARCHITECTURE
The urban square, which is constantly shaded and surrounded by vegetation along its perimeter, is adorned with strategically placed trees and a striking waterfall – an element that serves as an attraction, a place for play and a feature of great architectural quality. At the same time, the combination of all these factors helps to create a volume of ‘fresh’ air in the square large enough to trigger NATURAL VENTILATION mechanisms, thereby helping to regulate temperature and humidity levels and to dissipate heat from the residential and office buildings. The building’s EXTERNAL CLADDING consists of an interplay of slats and opaque panels oriented according to the orientation of the façades, so that the building envelope is constantly shaded, regardless of the time of day or the time of year, without, however, obstructing or impairing the view of the outside from the flats or offices. The design of the panels, as well as serving as the building’s decorative motif, is engineered to capture SOLAR ENERGY throughout the day, converting it into electricity and for the production of domestic hot water. The RAINWATER RECOVERY system involves channelling rainwater from the roof, via pipes integrated into the roof gardens of the inner courtyard, into a system of tanks, from which the water can be fed into the circuits for watering the greenery and for flushing toilets.
5. STRUCTURE
The building consists of a large reinforced concrete plinth and three-dimensional steel structures, which enable the creation of the sculptural space of the urban square and the horizontal ‘base’ of the intermediate square. Rising from this plinth, perfectly aligned with the vertical service shafts of the stairwells and lift shafts, is a traditional frame structure within which the residential units are arranged.