Having designed landmarks across the African continent, from South Africa to Ghana, Angola, and beyond, Elphick Proome designs identity-rich buildings that integrate sustainability at their core.

Your buildings have a distinct aesthetic, and others are quite monumental. What is your approach to creating ‘building identity’? 

Our endeavour is to have functional façades from which we derive the form and skin of the building — in other words, its identity. The Unilever project we did almost a decade ago was a very large dry fluids plant. The exterior skin of the complex derived from the components of the factory. We wanted to outwardly demonstrate the nature and functionality of the building: the entire mechanism of their operation was driven by conveyor belts, so we used that as a metaphor in generating the peripheral elements and the sectional form of the building. In the end, it had a sense of movement, which was outwardly legible. 

Many of your projects work well not only metaphorically, but functionally too — especially in their resilience to harsh climates in certain parts of Africa. How do you design for this? 

Our work is contextually responsive: one of the tenets of our design approach. We integrate sustainability all the way from façade to architectonics — having flexibility within the arrangement: thinking about floor plates, natural lighting, and ventilation. Façades are where the real technology comes through to regulate temperatures. Reducing heat gain and controlling the ingress of direct sun are important for these hot climates. The filter façade is not a new concept; it’s been used all around the world. We just completed a building in Nairobi where we induced ventilation through a façade and a very simple fenestration mechanism. We drew on the natural ‘chimney’ system of ventilation for the building, which the Arabs were doing 5000 years ago. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, but we want to evolve the wheel into the next project.

“We don’t want to reinvent the wheel; we want to evolve the wheel into the next project.”

Buildings with such a strong presence may, of course, alter the cityscape. How do you see your large-scale builds fitting in with the city-making process? 

We’re working on a building in Ghana at the moment which forms part of this new bulk growth that exists as a satellite to the main city. It’s still part of the string of the CBD, so you have the opportunity to develop connectivity and engage with existing environments. Keep in mind, it’s a 50-year process to build a city! There’s a building we’ve just completed in Tatu City, in Kenya, as well, where we were essentially the first kids on the block. It was the first office building in an entirely new city. We had to imagine how to react to things that don’t exist yet and hope that future architects who develop buildings adjacent to ours would react positively.

In South Africa, you’re known for the Cruise Terminal, the portal to the ‘Kingdom of the Zulus’. How does that coincide with the growth of Durban? 

The Terminal forms part of the Durban Point precinct — which was quite a dead urban environment. The Point dates back to the 1850s, so those buildings have fallen into terrible disrepair because of the connectivity issues and security. But the Terminal is on the other side of the harbour, and it didn’t activate the Point precinct. 

Our methodology, then, was to create an expansive urban space that would help connect the promenade all the way back around and activate the Point: it’s a very sustainable way of looking at cities — through generating traffic and movement with urban integration. It’s a fantastic example of revitalisation where you rejuvenate a previously dead and unused part of the city and connect it to surrounding areas. By the time we finished the project, that entire street had upgraded. There were tenants and operational businesses — incredible to see.

“Our endeavour is to have functional façades in a building, which then derive form and skin to give identity.”