Architect and Builder Magazine South Africa March/April 2015 | Page 60

With the building being
more of a “street”,
the building is able to
make use of natural
ventilation in the
majority of the space

The pedestrian street created through the
Watershed creates a vital urban connection
between the main active area around the
shopping centre precinct and the Clock
Tower Precinct on the one side and the
aquarium, the bus stop, the GSB campus and
new BRT stops on the other. Wolff Architects
designed what has been dubbed ”the floating
floor” – a suspended structure that makes a
50m x 50m gridded steel slab over the market.

The floating floor meant that the activity of
the street below could be complemented
by another type of space, running
perpendicularly overhead. This substantially
increases the diversity and intensity of human
interaction in the street.
The Offering
The ground floor of the building is now home
to some 150 small business owners selling a
multitude of arts and crafts, representing over
365 local brands. This is complemented by a
Wellness offering upstairs – contributing a
range of treatments for the mind, body and
soul. The consolidation of the Blue Shed and
Red Shed traders into one space provided
valuable retail space within the Victoria Wharf
for the introduction of new international
retail offerings.
A 1,000m2 exhibition space over two
floors attracts locals to the V&A with a
peak visitor flow of 500 per hour. The space
hopes to be home to some of the top exhibitions in the world, with Art of the Brick being
the first exhibition.
The final element to the Watershed is the
soon to be completed Worksh