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Architectural Features
A panoramic lift is positioned at the pinnacle of the
building’s mass, transporting every inhabitant on
a scenic journey to their destination. A stand-out
element of the design, the exterior of the lift, is
completely clad in red aluminium and sits within
a glass shaft facing Table Mountain. Inside the
courtyard, a highly reflective aluminium material
wraps the bottom escape staircase – emulating a
mirror and encouraging residents to look up.
Thus, the building connects to the environment
in a myriad of strategic ways and sets a precedent
for urban conscious residential developments
in the city. Axis challenges conventional ideas
associated with an urban apartment lifestyle,
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offering a definite uniqueness that not many other
homes in Cape Town can.
Challenges
One of the main challenges with many residential
projects is that they are quite rigid in their
functional structure and are designed to facilitate
the minutiae of human inhabitation. A major
element of the design concept was the idea of a
floating monolith. To achieve this, the architects
and engineers devised a “belt beam” detail that
wrapped around the entire building on the first floor.
This consisted of a 500mm deep slab thickening
around the edge of the building and a 1,000mm
upstand that doubled up as the balcony balustrade
Axis