THE RIDGE, V&A WATERFRONT
Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront has
announced its newest development project,
a commercial building named The Ridge.
The Ridge is a custom-designed 8,500m 2
green building to accommodate the Cape
Town offices of international professional
services firm, Deloitte. Construction began
early in 2019 and the roof slab was completed
in January 2020. The overall completion date
and the subsequent handover to Deloitte are
scheduled for October 2020. The site was
previously a parking lot which serviced the
renowned UCT Graduate School of Business
Campus, the Breakwater Lodge building and
other commercial buildings in the vicinity.
As the signature development along
Portswood Road, The Ridge will form the
apex of a new Waterfront zone, dubbed the
Portswood District, a green development
forming a natural linkage to the Greenpoint
fringe of the Atlantic Seaboard. Existing
developed buildings there include the
Merchant House building and the Break-
water Lodge and campus to the east. The
developed site will form the main connection
between Dock Road, on the main route to
the original parts of the Waterfront, and
Portswood Road, which runs just outside
the north-western boundary of the property.
On the ground, The Ridge features a
number of ‘firsts’ for the green building/
Project Watch
sustainability industry, which set new
standards for the industry in South Africa.
These include energy-efficient and passive
climate control measures, the use of renew-
ables, sustainable water handling and
usage, the lowering of the carbon footprint
of the building and a focus on the use of
natural lighting.
Dematerialisation, a concept that has
grown in popularity globally as the climate
crisis is fully understood, means consciously
using fewer materials than conventional
design solutions. Hence, this lowers the
environmental footprint of the building on
the planet. This is manifested at The Ridge
in unique ways, including designing the con-
crete structure to be as efficient as possible.
The project has sequestered plastic waste
collected from a variety of sources and
encapsulating this in the building core.
Additionally, the usage of timber as the
façade of the building is a South African
first. Much of the building features a cross-
laminated timber (CLT) façade that provides
not only a warm and authentic feel to the
exterior but significantly reducing the
buildings carbon footprint. The façade is
designed to facilitate passive climate control
inside and hence contributes to a com-
fortable and natural working environment
for building users.
Landlord: V&A Waterfront
Tenant: Deloitte
Architects: Studio MAS
Engineering Team: Arup
Project Managers: Mace
Quantity Surveyors: Smith & Co
Interior Architects: Paragon Interface
Main Contractor: GVK Siya Zama
Geo-tech Engineers: Core Geothech
Landscape Architects: Planning Partners
Acoustics: SRL
Eco-bricks: V&A Waterfront
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