NEWSWORTHY
FAÇADE CONTRACTOR
PUSHES THE ENVELOPE
There are few things more rewarding
for façade contractors than to be part
of a successful project team that
delivers excellence on technically
complex projects. Full commitment
from shareholders to take on the project
specific risks is critical, but so is the
need for the team to ‘get excited’ and
be willing to stretch themselves as to
perform to the obligations of the contract.
RECTAGRID RS40 CREATES
SPACE IN FACILITIES
Companies looking to optimise
space within warehouses, distribution facilities and manufacturing
plants are increasingly using
Rectagrid RS40 floor grating to
create mezzanine floors. This
locally manufactured floor grating
has long been considered the
workhorse of the industrial flooring
market and offers exceptional
structural integrity.
Elaine van Rooyen, marketing
manager at Andrew Mentis, says
the primary purpose when creating
mezzanines is to optimise the use
of previously dead space in a facility.
Constructing a mezzanine using
floor grating offers flexibility and is
a more cost-effective option than
using a brick and mortar structure.
Rectagrid RS40 is locally manufactured at Andrew Mentis’ facility
in Elandsfontein, Johannesburg and
makes use of a pressure locking
system. This manufacturing process
produces unquestionable locking
characteristics, guaranteeing the
structural integrity of the floor.
Van Rooyen says that stringent
quality control during the manufacturing process ensures that close
tolerances are maintained and that
the round transversal bar fits tightly
through the pierced bearer bar. To
further ensure reliability in corrosive
environments, floor grating can be
hot dip galvanised or manufactured
in stainless steel or 3CR12.
The floor grating is engineered to
take specific loading, which ensures
both the safety and structural
integrity of a floor. A complete understanding of the load bearing capacity
of floor grating is necessary to ensure
that the correct grating is selected.
www.mentis.co.za
8
The Towers, Cape Town CBD
World of Windows was given a great
opportunity to deliver on an extremely challenging re-development of an occupied building
by retro-glazing the 20,000m2 of façade on a building envelope installed in the early ‘70s.
An excellent re-development of two towers by Redefine Properties Ltd, protected the
interests of existing tenants and resulted in an iconic building with an abundance of parking
and vibrant thriving social hub at street level.
The first challenge was to produce a new suite of profiles. PURE Consulting had proposed
an innovative curtain walling system that allowed top-down installation, progressive
weatherproofing of the envelope, resistance to extremely high wind loads during construction,
and allowed an early start to the internal fit-out. Apart from the need to attract AAA-grade
rentals by designing an iconic façade (Boogertman+Partners), the glass selection for insulated
glazed units reduced air-conditioning costs by 30%. The new die tooling, extruding and
testing of the system was done in record time to comply with the performance specification
set by PURE Consulting with a design wind loading of 3,400Pa.
The next hurdle was to ensure that the façade setting-out would optimise bracket
lengths without the risk of the nominal façade zone being compromised by the existing
protruding precast panels. The entire building was surveyed and the final orientation and
reduction of the nominal zone agreed. This translated into the early manufacture of bespoke
brackets for specific locations and an
overall shortening in length, which was
significant over thousands of brackets.
Vertical and horizontal transport of
material:- Two goods hoists were bought
with double cars, big enough to take a
trolley of units. The scaffolding was set
out 800mm away from the building face
to allow for the system and the 300mm
protruding fins. This risk of falling was
mitigated using cantilever scaffolds
and crash decks every seven floors.
The scaffold was designed with timber
board overlays to allow a full trolley of
units to travel the entire perimeter of the
building, with only the top levels boarded
due to the significant weight and height.
The supply chain was based on
Just In Time methodology, with the
units being double-glazed locally and
aluminium gutters and brackets being
delivered for installation on the same day.
Installation was completed three months
early, and allowed World of Windows to
design, develop, procure and install a
unitised louvre system on the 13-storey
parkade. This is the first of its kind as far
they are aware, and fully installed using
only gondolas suspended from the roof.
www.worldofwindows.co.za
News Watch