Architect and Builder August 2016 | Page 30

The centre has two major food anchor tenants, many fashion retailers and a nine-auditorium cinema complex. The gross building area of the entire centre is 485,000m². The Site Waterfall City is highly accessible, located adjacent to the Allandale Road exit of the N1 Highway, the first free-flow intersection of its size in Africa. The Mall holds prime position in the tailor-made 330ha new city that embraces integrated living, with shops, offices, homes, hotels, a hospital, light industry and the all-important lifestyle and leisure components. The precinct master plan’s 28 urban design seeks to promote an integrated livework-play environment. The developer undertook major roads upgrades around the development to make it easy for shoppers to arrive at Mall of Africa’s 26 entrances. Challenges Construction began in October 2012, providing a construction period of just 42 months for this development, which included 12 months for bulk earthworks. The sheer magnitude of the project and the limited construction period for completion posed an interesting challenge. The structural engineer and the architects needed to stay ahead Mall of Africa