African Design Magazine November 2014 | Page 25

News Steyn City’s golf clubhouse shines at 2014 Loerie awards The innovative ‘disappearing’ design of the golf clubhouse at the soon to be launched Steyn City Lifestyle Resort has already received recognition with the announcement of its win at the 2014 Loerie Awards in the Three Dimensional & Environmental Design – Architecture category. The architect responsible for the innovative design of the building Wessel van Dyk comments; “While most golf clubhouses do their best to stand out in the most ostentatious way possible and dominate their environment, the Steyn City clubhouse goes out of its way to do the opposite. We actually adopted an almost ‘non-architectural’ approach to the design of the building, which allowed us to reinvent clubhouse design in a fresh, sustainable way which is something the judges at the Loerie wards obviously appreciated.” He adds that; “The highlight of the structure is the way that it blends in with nature on multiple levels the most obvious of which is its roof garden, that allows the building to ‘melt’ into the landscape creating an almost magical illusion of ‘now you see it now you don’t’.” Cleverly hidden features abound in the design including a large 180 parking bay underground garage which fits seamlessly beneath the structure. In addition, not only is the building built on green principles to ensure the least possible impact on the environment but it is also built from the environment itself. This is thanks to the use of a rather unconventional cladding of gabion baskets (a metal cag Rf