V&A Waterfront Office Space by SVA International
The Cape Town skyline is a vision of bold builds, with new giants added to the view constantly. As everything from corporate to commerce grows, the spaces that carry the locals grow, too. Landing on the hotspot of the V&A Waterfront, this new office space, designed by SVA International, has taken the idea of a waterside workspace on a shining new journey.
Setting the scene
SVA International’s work on 14 Dock Road started when the V&A Waterfront found themselves ready for a contemporary building with an architectural envelope stylishly representative of their brand. The building, elevated appropriately, needed to provide users with the best access to views of the surrounding landscape – city, sea, and mountains in all their glory.
New kid on the Dock
The new office space would replace an existing fuel station, which needed to be decommissioned, demolished, and rebuilt on the adjacent site. Subtle references to acknowledge the original shoreline, which cuts diagonally across the site, were introduced in design elements, like the soffit of the Atrium ceiling, which crosses the entrance threshold. A link to Duncan Road also had to be accommodated and the railway crossing levels taken into account. This meant lowering part of the basement under the road between the new fuel station and 14 Dock Road.
An elegant building solution
‘Restraint is defined as the means to prevent from expressing something, to limit, keep under control, or moderate. In design, we can say that restraint is the intersection of working within constraints and practicing humility as designers. Designers too often see constraints as something restricting what they want to do.’ – Doug Chiang
Practising restraint in design is just another way of saying that form follows function, or letting the building tell you what it wants to be, as Louis Khan once said. All aspects of the building design, from building mass and façade treatment to fixing details, incorporated this practice of restraint to present an elegant contemporary building solution. The building was also designed to achieve a 5-star Green Star rating. Cyclist and pedestrian facilities, EV bays, greywater, solar panels, and selective sustainable sanitaryware are only a few of the initiatives in restraint and consideration that contributed to this successful Green Star rating.
Investing in the view
The façades, which face a street that sees thousands of visitors and guides locals and tourists alike to one of the city’s main hubs, needed to bring an aesthetically pleasing design contribution. 14 Dock Road is ideally situated to admire Signal Hill, Table Mountain, the harbour, and the working dock, so the office floor plate proportions had to be carefully shaped to maximise these priceless views from anywhere within the office. Glazing modules were horizontally fenestrated to minimise view obstruction and horizontal mullions were carefully positioned. The glass type selection was also meticulous and had to ensure comfort levels inside were met without obscuring the views onto the office floors from the street.
More than just materials
The client brief, climatic conditions, achieving sustainable design, and appropriate design choices were all informants when selecting the right materials. For the treatment of the main façade, the proportions of the building were one of the main influences, leading SVA to wrap the main façade with a transparent fabric that would accentuate the building’s form, maximise views, and respond to the programme while still practising restraint.
The material choice for the Atrium was guided by the fact that an uninterrupted, transparent viewing window would communicate to the public street, affording the building a sense of civic presence while allowing those inside the building to interact with the street via the stair window that connects office floors. The main façade fabric also wraps into the Atrium, creating the illusion that the Atrium is a space given to the street. The South face of the building needed to respond to climatic orientation and the harsh coastal environment, most appropriately tackled with precast concrete – an aged moss-grown concrete wall that will not age. Weighty concrete panels, with their deep-slotted windows and vertical fenestration, juxtapose the softer curved glazed façade with its horizontal articulation, creating a perfectly balanced duet. That is, ultimately, what 14 Dock Road offers to its environment – a well-balanced and sophisticated structure that gives more than it takes and pushes the quality of building big to new heights.
This article is an extract from our May Issue. Read the full issue here.
