236 BUITENGRACHT STREET, CAPE TOWN
This is a project for a small mixed use building within a mixed use
enclave on the interface between the central city and the Bo Kaap.
The site is currently vacant, but bounded on three sides by existing
heritage buildings in poor condition, whilst further down the street
a diverse collection of commercial buildings from the second half
of the 20th century have replaced the older fabric. The presence
of the historic stone retaining wall to the service road gives these
buildings a shared podium, meaning that they will always be seen
as an ensemble, rather than as slices of a city face only ever seen
in close oblique.
Because the zoning scheme allows for a multi-story building, the
land price allows for no less to be built, and so the stage is set for
an interesting game - how to find a building form which incorporates
into itself the tensions of this context whilst developing a coherent
presence of its own.
Layered onto the complexity of context is a complex brief, or
set of briefs. The city demands on-site parking, the street would
benefit from an active frontage, the architects need a new studio,
and the client, an art collector, wants a "skypad" and insists that it
will all be made of concrete.
The key to the solution is a tightly planned circulation
core located front and centre of the site. The building line
restrictions mean that the lift cannot rise to the top floor, and
so a two level penthouse comes into play, with bedrooms
and a lap pool en-suite to the en-suite occupying the
fourth floor, with living spaces on the third. This placement
allows for the mass to be broken down to give a picturesque
12
skyline stepped away from the street edge, with a viewing balcony
facing the city and a sheltered north facing terrace looking up to
Signal Hill.
The pad is held up in the sky by a base consisting of a pair of
double volume studio spaces flanking the