TIMBER CONSTRUCTION
Founded in 2012, OZCF began as a small community food garden in Cape Town, promoting local food, culture, and community through urban agriculture. The market has its roots in an old homestead in the upper City Bowl suburb of Oranjezicht and moved to the V & A Waterfront in 2015. Prior to this latest move, the OZCFM had been located across the road from the new site, within the Granger Bay District of the V & A Waterfront. The facility is regarded as a goodwill project by the V & A Waterfront, which designed and constructed its outer envelope.
The market sits on a site described by Mahoney as“ hostile”, due to the traffic situation and the sloping nature of the ground. It is, in effect, a former open-air parking deck over two levels of the existing Breakwater Undercover Parking Garage.
The lie of the land made it necessary to raise the structure’ s mass timber columns, which rest on concrete plinths of differing heights to provide a level frame for the building. The structure needed to be lightweight so the existing parking garage structure could support its load.
Mahoney says that structural elements were manufactured in the factory of the mass timber supplier Evermine before being delivered to site and assembled.“ Evermine executed the architects’ and engineers’ design with excellence, and the main structure fitted together to very tight tolerances like a huge Meccano set,” explains Mahoney.
Importantly for the client, the mass timber was treated with Copper Azole, which is internationally regarded as safer and more environmentally friendly than the common CCA treatment still used in South Africa.
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