Architect and Builder February/March 2019 | Page 23

lines and curved glazing on the retail shopfronts,
which is unusual for retail, facilitates a sense of
connection, engagement and shared ideas and a
shared, dynamic retail experience rather than the
compartmentalisation of a typical mall experience.
Similarly, the way in which the restaurants open
onto the sidewalk space along Maude Street
activates the street edge.
The MARC has also been designed to actively
interface and connect with neighbouring properties
– particularly the Balalaika Hotel and the Holiday
Inn. Van Bebber points out that “knitting The MARC
back into the urban fabric” was essential to ensure
the successful activation of the public space of
the precinct, and to Sandton’s commercial centre
more generally. The MARC is unique in Sandton in
that it has three separate entrances, including the
newly unlocked passageway from Stella Street to
the south, which has been decorated with specially
commissioned urban art, and draws pedestrians
from neighbouring offices to the south, as well
as Gautrain users, facilitating easy access to the
centre and hotels beyond.
The Marc
Innovative Façade Design
Arup provided specialised façade engineering
services on The Marc’s façade. Matilde Tellier,
senior façade engineer at Arup, commented, “One
of the biggest challenges with a building of such
unusual geometry was rationalising the façade
envelope for efficient fabrication while adhering
to the architectural concept.”
The façade’s surface is formed by a mesh of
5,620 alternating gold and black flat triangular
elements whose vertices follow a nebula of points
scattered in space with a specific logic.
The Arup team approached the Jewel’s façade
panelisation design by forcing the maximum
number of equal triangles on the surface and
exploring various combinations of curves.
The curve, generated surface and triangular
panels were coded in a parametric environ-
ment, allowing the geometry of the spiral
curve to be adjusted to change the overall
shape of the façade and achieve different
degrees of “bulginess”. This enabled the
architect to make geometric adjustments, with
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