African project
Spectacle Warehouse – South Africa
standing
tall
T
he new head office for Spectacle
Warehouse in Pretoria was constructed
completely out of Light Steel Frame and
cladding. The project represents the
company’s first standalone building;
previously all stores were within a
‘value mart’ setting. The client required
the building to represent their identity
and be a strong enough architectural
statement to ensure that regular feet
through the door was maintained.
“When the client approached us, with the land
already purchased and asked us design a new
store of 500m 2 plus on what was originally a small
residential site, the challenges were immediately
apparent,” say Base Architects. “How could we
possibly fit the amount of parking required by
municipal regulations, in total amounting to 30 bays,
on a very small site?” The design solution was to
place the building on stilts to allow for the parking
on ground level and then elevate the building
to maximize its exposure to passers-by. “The
architecture as a whole is quite striking, however,
the building being on silts has brought another
dimension to its aesthetic,” notes Darren Ogden
from Base Architects.
“As architects we are continuously searching for
better innovative ways to build. We have worked
with light frame steel for some years now and this
was a perfect project, due to the building having to
be on stilts, to create a light weight structure. From
our experience, using light frame steel in the correct
way, allows for speedier construction times, much
cleaner works due to very little wastage, a better
result in thermal and sound insulation, in all a far
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