PRECAST PANELLING EMBELLISHES NEW BUILDING FAÇADE
Textured precast concrete panelling has been used to dress the street-facing façade of new headquarter premises of fruit export company , Delecta Fruit ( Pty ) Ltd . Fronting onto Paarl ’ s Main Street , the 1,700m 2 building comprises two office floors and a parking basement .
Concrete Manufacturers Association member , Cape Concrete , produced 15 panels for the project . They were cast with granite aggregate and were bushhammered for a textured finish . “ Delecta decided on a textured precast concrete façade due to the manner in which this finish and a traditional lime-washed finish , as seen on the Cape Dutch buildings in the area , interacts with sunlight ,” said architect , Gideon Malherbe of Malherbe Rust Architects . Moreover , the colour of the concrete and the aggregate were chosen on the basis of their similarity to Paarl Granite .
“ As part of our objective to break up the mass of the façade , the main set of panels appears to float across the upperfloor . This illusion is achieved through a ribbon of windows and aluminium cladding which runs below the main set of panels . The wall below the ribbon window is covered in a thick plaster band
detail which references the plaster work of some of the older buildings on Main Street . Cape Concrete ’ s dedication to the quality and consistency of the scabbled finish delivered a very pleasing result ,” said Malherbe .
Eleven panels were installed on the top-floor façade and four were used to cover a two-sided section of the groundfloor façade . The upper-level panels span 5.3m ( height ) by 2.6m ( width ) and are 115mm thick with a 300mm thickened beam section at the top of the panel . Abutting a 230mm brick wall , the panels provide an additional layer of thermal insulation for what is a west-facing elevation . The ground floor panels measure 2.37m ( height ) and up to 5.37m ( width ) and cover three walls of a small annex adjacent to the entrance of the building .
Cape Concrete director , Johan Nel , said that some of the panels had to be cast with mitered ends for corner installations and that one of the panels was cast with an embedded Delecta logo which required special moulding .
“ The project required great accuracy during casting to ensure the required level of precision in the installation of the panels . Extensive planning had to be undertaken to make sure that the installation was trouble-free and the installers spent a day using as-build lines and levels to set out the placement of each panel . This enabled accurate first-time placements which only took small adjustments to achieve perfect alignments . This meant that instead of taking the planned two days to complete the installation it was done in one day ,” concluded Nel . www . capeconcrete . com
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