Portside is a striking office development strategically and prominently located in Cape Town’s central business district (CBD, developed in a joint venture between Old Mutual and FirstRand Bank. The brief was to design a building that would encapsulate the energy of a rapidly evolving world-class city, with progressive architectural design features, inspired by a firm commitment to sustainable and responsible development, within a unique location and landscape.
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Intended to be an urban marker, the building also needed to respond to its context in the greater CBD as much as the local precinct and its immediate surroundings. The concept also needed to address the building’s urban functioning in terms of movement systems, public space, land use and building interface.
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Our design addressed the building’s urban form through its massing, height and composition, and its relationship with the urban environment. We carefully considered the building’s visual impact, creating a legible identity on three scales, at the distant, middle and immediate perspectives.
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A key requirement was to provide two clear addresses for the respective corporate owners. We achieved this by creating two separate entrances on opposite sides of the building, each with its own plaza, with Old Mutual’s on Bree Street and FirstRand’s on Buitengracht Street. The entrance to the parking and service vehicle access is located on the upper ground level off Mechau Street.
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The character of the built form was paramount, in particular the height, massing and proportion. The building’s transparent double-glazed façade and its strong verticality gives a crystalline slenderness to its mass and capitalises on panoramic views for tenants. While development rights permitted building heights to 147 metres, we determined that a slightly lower tower was more appropriate to the nature and character of the precinct. The lower scale would also reduce the visual impact of the building in relation to the larger urban and geographical context of the CBD and Table Mountain.
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We also considered the public realm around the building. A vibrant mix of cafes and restaurants on the ground floor activated its frontages and revitalised street life in the area.
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We prioritised the design to ensure it could be a benchmark integrated sustainability. We incorporated features that would raise the standards of green design, by optimising indoor environmental quality and reducing energy, potable water consumption, stormwater run-off, waste production and negative emissions for tall buildings. In 2015, Portside was delivered as one of Africa’s most sustainable buildings, achieving a 5-Star Green Star rating from the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA), and earning the mantle ‘tallest green star rated building in Africa’.
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Sean Gibson + Wieland Gleich - Photographers