of the bean morphs the rectilinear urban edge of the street block , and draws in pedestrians from the street . Indigenous gardens at the entrance enhance the sense of arrival , and provide both human scale against the backdrop of the new building , and a much welcome breath of green relief in the cityscape .
Once inside the building , a visitor is struck by the central heart of the scheme : a multistorey atrium covered with a long span ETFE ( ethylene-tetra-fluoro-ethylene ) roof – the largest in Africa - flooding the space with daylight . This revolutionary three-layer co-polymer system including a layer with a high density print , creates large free-form pillows which can be inflated or deflated to control light penetration by means
of adjusting the shading created by the printed layer . This allows building users to feel connected with the external environment whilst managing the building ’ s thermal performance and controlling glare and heat-build-up within the atrium space . The ETFE material does not degrade under ultraviolet light or atmospheric pollution which makes it an ideal choice for a building roof . An added benefit in Highveld thunderstorms is that it is far acoustically superior to a hard roof surface such as metal or glass .
Around the atrium , several pause areas and breakaway zones where staff and visitors can interact animate the space , and dynamically planned bridges and stairs criss-cross the atrium at different angles and levels connecting
MultiChoice City 331