Fourways Mall Promotions Court
ASTPM TUBULAR CATEGORY
Fourways Mall, now the largest mall in Africa, recently
opened its doors after a multibillion rand investment into
the massive extension and renovation project.
As part of the upgrade of the mall, a new roof was
proposed. The roof is essentially a tubular structure.
Fabrication was challenging due to the fact that the
structure contains a lot of rolled sections. A number of
unique profiles had to be cut, which meant a significant
amount of welding. The fabrication process required
several fabrication jigs to be made up to accommodate
the roof design for the project.
The roof structure is free standing, so during the
erection process the project team had to build up
a temporary platform to support the steel. Once
everything was in position, the temporary platform was
then released.
The roof was built on ground level and erected on
temporary roof support steelwork. Tubular sections
were rolled into various radii and the cross bracing
was individually profiled to allow a stub-on connection
to the main truss struts. The challenges faced during
erection involved fitting a new roof onto the temporary
structure and accuracy of fabrication and erection was
of the essence.
In terms of the installation sequence, the team
started with the inner ring that was erected on top of the
temporary platform. From there, the outer ring and struts
were erected. The rings then tie back to the columns
that tie back to the roof.
The Mall complex is vast so the logistics of
manouvering pieces into the parking area in order to
eventually lift them into position presented a challenge
for the team. Due to the limited laydown space, as well
as crane time, planning of the erection was critical and
required careful coordination with the civil contactor.
“If you go into the promotional court, and you look
up, you’ll see the wonder of what steel can do,” said
engineer Paul Rebelo from CADCON.
“Its aesthetically a very pleasing roof, which allows
the light to come through. If you’d tried to do this in
concrete you wouldn’t have the same effect. It would
have been a very heavy structure and the light would
have been minimised. What you have now is a very
light weight structure that’s very pleasing to the eye,”
he concludes.
Client: Azrapart
Architect: Boogertman + Partners
Quantity Surveyor:Quanticost
Project Managers: SIP Project Managers
Structural Engineers: WSP
Steel Contractor: Cadcon
Main Contractor: Mota-Engil Construction
Steel Erector: Ijaca
Cladding Contractor: Hulabond Cladding
Skylight Contractor: Skylight SA
Paintwork Contractor: TDS Contractors
Steel Awards
85