Architect and Builder January/February 2016

MECHAU STREET ELEVATION LONGITUDINAL SECTION Italtile supplied all the tiles, sanitaryware and brassware for the project. The historical floor structure and steel support columns are exposed in the main entrance foyer. This provides for an interesting experience through the contradiction of moving through the historical fabric into a sleek, modern reception area behind it. Temporary Bracing The main façade on Bree Street was stabilised by utilising the inherent buttressing effect of the walls framing the entrance foyer and the return wall down Mechau Street. A horizontal box-girder was installed to brace the top end of the Bree Street façade back to the return walls and stiffeners spanning between the girder and ground level were provided to brace the façade vertically. PRESERVATION OF THE 4-STOREY HERITAGE FAÇADE & ENTRANCE FOYER The brief to engineers, Bergstan South Africa, was to preserve a 120-year old, 12m high fire-damaged façade and entrance foyer built of unburnt clay bricks and weak mortar supported on packed stone foundations whilst creating a 3-storey parking basement below it, at feasible cost. New Support System The vertical load of the façade and entrance foyer was transferred onto ‘needles’ (corbels) projecting into the walls from the new ground floor RC structure which was subsequently undermined to create space for the parking basement below. The load of the façade and the edge of ground floor structure is carried on mini- LOWER BASEMENT LEVEL RETAIL LEVEL 36 Touchstone House

Architect and Builder January/February 2016 | Page 38