The Composition
The building sits on a basement, which accom-
modates parking and primary building services.
This basement required the excavation of almost
the entire site, with contractors picking through
an area of 190 x 35m, down to ±7m deep almost
entirely into Malmesbury Shale. The resultant two
level parking basement provides the required 350
parking bays.
The roof of the basement forms a common
podium over which the building is then divided
into two halves. As Dock Road dips towards
the mid-point of the site, the podium appears to
elevate itself out of the ground, a condition which
Waterway House
also occurs consistently along the canal edge.
Rock that was excavated out of the basement
has been used to clad the raised podium along
the canal edge.
Although actually separate structures, these two
buildings share a common design language and have
similar, mirrored floorplates – which are adapted at
each end to the particular constraints of the north
and south site boundaries.
The two buildings are coupled at the centre of
the site by a suspended and semi-transparent link
bridge on the second and third floors. This bridge,
and the space below, allows a view corridor from
Table Bay to the Noon Gun on Signal Hill.
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