History Touchstone House is a historic building . Constructed in 1895 , but extensively damaged in a fire a number of years ago , it posed a further challenge to integrate parts of the structure that had remained relatively undamaged into the new design . A Heritage application process was already underway as part of the previous 2008 development process and Axion had to slot their design proposal seamlessly into the process to avoid a new heritage submission .
The client had certain strict pre-set requirements for the building design and required maximum bulk and maximum flexibility , as the size of eventual office suites were unknown and could vary widely and , furthermore , they had to accommodate office suite sizes from 80m ² to entire floors .
Concept The historical Touchstone warehouse façade and a portion of the entrance was relatively unscathed by the fire . It was decided that the façade and the entrance section be retained and incorporated in the design during the preceding heritage processes . Hence the design stayed within the parameters as agreed with Council and Heritage Western Cape .
Set-backs were utilised in order to achieve a layered appearance for the building . The heritage façade was retained as the strong visual anchor at street level and the new façade was set back by 5m . The façade was then further layered by the use of varying solid and lighter elements . Use was made of full glass corners with strong unbroken linear windows to create the impression of a glass façade partially covered with solid elements .
It was decided , based on similar developments that FWJK had undertaken elsewhere , to use vibrant colour and texture to emphasise specific elements and features on the building . Due to the massing ( a direct result of the building line and height setbacks ) the building at once gives the impression of a number of smaller components , and also of visual coherence . The colour palette comes straight from Cape Town itself . Panoramic shots were taken from the FNB Portside building and these influenced the development of the colour palette into bold , clean and distinct blocks .
392 Touchstone House