Landsdowne Centre: The shopping
centre is located in the heart of Karen,
one of the more culturally steeped
locations in Nairobi. Principally Rustic
in nature with an emphasis on the use
of stone and timber which gives it a
feel of a by-gone era. The design we
came up with chose to import a lot of
qualities, while at the same time giving
them an updated look. A modern take
on the neo-colonial style of design. We
achieved this by careful selection of our
material palette: Wherever possible
we used blue-gumpole walkways with
exposed soffits, coupled with mazeras
stone tiling as opposed to porcelain
tiling. Externally we chose to go with
coral stone cladding coupled with timber
boarding and touches of mazeras to
contrast with the textured render. The
central atrium space was the principal
organizing space, so we chose to create a
small atrium garden, open three storeys
to the roof. This lends an air of bringing
the outside in.
The Elegance: One of the more
exciting projects we are currently
handling, which won us an award at the
recent AAK Awards for Excellence in
Architecture earlier this year for Best
Concept/Ongoing Project. The project
showcases our interest in learning and
working with new technologies, in this
instance the use of a Steel Structure
(as opposed to the pre-dominant RC
structures favoured in the country),
Specification of Thermal Controlled
Glass, Semi-Automated stackable
parking, green balconies among others.
The design principle itself is fairly
simple: the office floor level plates
rotate at the centre by around 5 degrees
clockwise with every additional floor
akin to a deck of cards being fanned out
from the centre, creating a unique and,
what we hope, monumental commercial
building design.
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africandesignmagazine.com