ON SITE
Atterbury Property Developments
Render of completed Deloitte Africa headquarters.
Located north, along the N1 highway, is Waterfall City, prime area for development, as evidenced by the spectacular twisting building of PwC and the immense Mall of Africa. Soon to join these iconic buildings will be Deloitte Africa’ s new head office. The development is being done by a joint venture between Atterbury and Attacq, with Atterbury responsible for development management. The development is 42 500m 2 of gross leasable area( GLA) and will serve as the consolidation of Deloitte’ s Johannesburg and Pretoria offices into one facility in Waterfall City— a business hub between the two metropoles. The location has easy access to the major highway and is well positioned to service the spread-out client base within both cities’ borders.“ Its central location and easy access to highways enable Deloitte to effectively service their client base in the whole of Gauteng,” says Arno du Plessis, development manager at Atterbury. Bamboo Rock Construction commenced with the bulk earthworks on 4 October 2017 and is scheduled to be completed by 15 February 2018.
16- CEC March 2018
Atterbury and Attacq appointed Group 5 as the principal building contractor, with site handover scheduled for early March 2018. Jan-Willem Pelser, operations manager at Bamboo Rock Construction, describes the bulk earthworks being undertaken by the contractor:“ Total excavation entails 85 000m 3 of earth moving,” he says and adds that the square meterage of the basement is approximately 17 000m 2, with roughly 3 200m 2 of lateral support.“ Depending on the geotechnical conditions of the soil, the walls are of varying thicknesses,” he explains. Nic Chapman, MD of Bamboo Rock Construction, adds,“ Of the 85 000m 3 of earthworks, 50 % is rock, which poses its own challenges, requiring multiple blasting on site and removal.”“ A geotechnical investigation was conducted by civil and structural engineering company Dekker & Gelderblom Consulting Engineers, prior to commencement of the earthworks, upon which all the designs were based,” Pelser confirms. The terrain slopes substantially, according to Karien Coetzee at Aevitas Group and Empowered
Spaces Architects JV( a JV as both principal agent and project architect).“ Depending on from where you measure the structure, the highest point will be 7.5 storeys above natural ground level, and the lowest point of the site will be 10 storeys, including basements.” Du Plessis clarifies,“ It will be four levels of basement, and seven levels of office space when completed.” The development manager also describes a unique design feature that will accommodate expansion during the 12-year lease, if so required.“ Other than location and price, one of the main features is that the building has been designed with massive 6 000m ² footplates, giving the tenant maximum flexibility to grow and move within the structure with limited churn costs. It’ s designed with longevity in mind,” he adds. When Deloitte takes occupation of the building, there will be a staff complement of 3 440, with space for expansion to about 4 900 people.
Project challenges
Coetzee explains that in the early stages of the project, during the request for proposals( RFP) stage, there were