Architect and Builder September/October 2015 | Page 57

Parking
One particularly onerous challenge was the parking
provision. While the statutory requirement could easily
be met, the commercial requirement for a high-end
development was much more. The width of the site
was just too narrow to allow adequate circulation down
the ramp without losing too much parking. Ultimately,
it was clear that an additional level of excavation would,
in fact, provide very little additional parking.
At this point, the client’s instruction was to proceed
with the planning of a stack-parking system, configured
in two levels in the same bay and adequate for managed
parking use. These systems have been in use in
developed economies for decades, but are still virtually
unknown in South Africa. Their low cost and mechanical
simplicity made them the ideal choice in this situation
where no alternative was available. The main challenges
were to get the local authorities to recognise them as
regular parking bays for zoning purposes (they eventually
did not) and to gain acceptance from the building’s
residents (gaining slowly).
Construction
The professional team was led by Fabian Architects and
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