Architect and Builder Magazine South Africa May/June 2015 | Page 63

What particularly strikes
one about the interior
of the triple volume at
The Point is that it is
dominated by light

ACOUSTIC CONSULTANT’S COMMENT
Every so often, the owners of a building
decide it is time to move on. Or in the
case of this project, move up. Regent
Square building revamp in Sea Point was
completed in 2013. It was decided to add a
tower block with offices and a gym in 2014.
Machoy Consulting Acoustics Engineers
were commissioned by Louis Karol
Architects (represented by Robert Silke
and Keith Blackwell) to provide acoustics
design for noise control. Naturally, the
new roof had to be lightweight and, to

The Point

make things simple, there were plant
rooms adjacent to new offices and a gym
adjacent to both.
Office acoustic design was standard.
Plant rooms are relatively simple to deal
with in terms of noise control but, in this
case, we had to specify doors which were
almost airtight to avoid noise leakage.
The difficulty with the roof is that, being
Cape Town, rain falls for a significant part
of the year. Thus, to avoid office dwellers
having to listen to the gentle thunder of
the north-west rain, we had to design a

build-up which would eliminate rain noise
and, at the same time, not be too heavy so
as to compromise the lightness of the roof.
Then there was the gym. As we all
know, gyms are places where people
jump around, lift weights and drop them
on the floor. This sends vibrations through
the whole building. Consequently, a gym
mat had to be designed. We have, in the
past, designed gym mats for a number of
gyms, with success. And so it was in this
case, that all things worked. As ever, it was
a pleasure working with Louis Karol.

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