Warehouse & Office Park Development
Sector
Commercial
Location
Booysens, South Africa
Type
Commercial - turnkey project design and project management
SQM
12 000sqm
Goal achieved
Circular economy – recycle, reuse and repair
We started with a site zoned agricultural with chemical contamination and ended two years later with 10 000 sqm of warehousing and 2 000 sqm of offices.
This 22-hectare piece of land in the south of Johannesburg was perfectly positioned 8 minutes from Sandton and 2 minutes from a major arterial. Zoned agricultural and bordering a residential area the brief was to ensure the final design resonated with the surrounding area. The transformation was worth the two years it took to turn this into a property to be admired.
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As with all projects, our priority was to save costs as far as possible, and we intended to make it the best warehousing facility in the area. We achieved this – three separate areas: 2 000 sqm of warehousing and office, 8 000 sqm of warehousing with an additional 1650 sqm under a canopy and 2 000 sqm of offices. The existing structures were demolished bar the 2 000 sqm of offices which were renovated, and all new design and construction was undertaken by our team.
The size of the offices and the expanse of the windows gives one a distinct feeling of working outside – every office is filled with light and a 180-degree view of green leaves and gigantic trees. All the office spaces have access to meeting rooms, kitchens, canteens, bathrooms and pause areas.
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State of the art telecommunications were installed and serviced by a central server room. Charcoal clip-tight was used on the sawtooth roof, raw concrete columns, fibre reinforced floors and charcoal powder-coated steel. The fire tanks can accommodate 1 000 000 litres of water, and we have a web of bright red pipework under the charcoal insulation for the high-tech fire system.
All parking is newly paved, and the gardens are beautifully laid out and manicured. One cannot discount the fact that these gardens are food for the souls of those that look over them.
The palette of charcoal / white and ochre raw face brick set up the framework for a smart industrial, low maintenance look that gave the building the imposing appearance it deserved. Salvaging as much as possible was key to this project. Every salvageable brick was cleaned and saved, all paving bricks, ceiling tiles, light fittings, old steel window frames were ground and cleaned, steel beams and all cable that was salvageable was reused.
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At the entrance to the office complex, a wall of black steel-framed glass windows and front doors are recessed behind the original façade of three architecturally strong arches. The original wide passages define the office interiors, and the new boardroom was completed with reclaimed and restored parquet found underneath some laboratory’s carpets.
