WINNER: INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENTS WINNER: INTERIORS & GREEN AWARD
Growthpoint Greenovate Awards Programme Google Head Office South Africa
Growthpoint Properties and the Green Building
Council of South Africa have initiated a joint
project to explore ideas for the development and
establishment of a Student Awards Programme.
This programme, known as the Greenovate Awards,
introduces university students to green building
thinking and recognises excellence in application.
The Greenovate Awards competition targets
students in their honours year of studies in the
property, construction and quantity surveying
departments. The first Greenovate Awards were
held in 2015 and were set up with the University
of Cape Town, the University of the Witwatersrand
and the University of Pretoria.
Round one of the competition takes place
internally – the internal selection and judging process
are up to each university to decide.
Each university’s panel then selects the top
two projects submitted by student groups from
each university. The top two projects are invited
to advance to the next round which takes place in
Johannesburg. These top groups – the finalists –
present to an external panel of judges consisting of
industry experts and compete against one another
for a grand prize of R30,000.
The intention behind the programme is to
expose the students to key focus areas concerning
sustainability within the industry and to introduce
the industry to the available talent. This programme
will also act as a platform for Growthpoint Properties
to recruit prospective students for graduate
programmes and internships, culminating in
potential job opportunities. Essentially, the awards
programme assists students in entering the market
as advocates for green building with a passion to
create better and more sustainable cities, towns
and neighbourhoods. The Google Johannesburg project challenged the design team at
Boogertman+Partners Interiors with a highly unique brief. The workplace
design had to adhere to the Google corporate culture while being responsive
to the office’s locality and the city’s charm. Furthermore, seeing as Google
is at the forefront of sustainable design, it was part of the interior brief to
design a space that could achieve a LEED Gold as well as an SA Interiors
5-Star Green Star rating. The Google interiors successfully implemented all
the requirements and illustrated that an interior project could incorporate
an attentive and sustainable approach through up-cycling, recycling and
reusing local elements, and still produce an internationally acclaimed result.
The innovative manner in which the great variety of influences and
flavours were incorporated into a proudly South African Interior was
essential to the project’s success.
This project is a frontrunner in office interiors because of its avant-garde
a pproach and authentic interpretation of a context conscious workplace
design. Google Johannesburg not only complied with the requirements
of the Green Star rating LEED Gold certification, it also stepped up to a
different level through its interpretation of the city’s riches within the interior.
Interior Architects: Boogertman + Partners Architects
Project Managers: Profica
Quantity Surveyors: Turner & Townsend
Mechanical, Electrical, Fire Engineers &
Wet Services: CKR Consulting
Acoustic Engineers: Linspace
Green Consultants: Solid Green; Ecocentric; Ecolution
Kitchen Consultants: Talman & Associates
Main Contractor: Trend Group
The first ever winners of the Greenovate Awards are the
UCT team of Rowan McKenzie, Dijon Ross and Miekie van
der Merwe, with supervisor Saul Nurick. They focused on
the role of the IPD Green Property Indicator in the South
African property market.
Pictured from left: Neil Gopal, Moeketsi Thobela, Brian
Wilkinson, Dijon Ross, Mieke van der Merwe, Rowan
McKenzie, Martin Smith and Werner van Antwerpen
SAPOA Awards
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