CASE STUDIES

The gracious Four Seasons Westcliff Hotel, perched on the leafy hillside of the posh Johannesburg suburb, is renowned for its panoramic views of the city’s colourful canopy of trees. Built in 1997 as a hillside haven with a nod to the city’s chic colonial heritage in soft pastel shades with masses of glass frontage (including a glass lift), the iconic complex features luxury suites set amidst manicured terraces and stone courtyards, shady pergolas and luscious landscaping.

The Muelmed Mediclinic in Pretoria is a multi-disciplinary hospital which opened the first private trauma unit in the city in 1993. The healthcare facility is renowned for its specialist medical care and management believed it was time to upgrade the late 70’s modernist or ‘brutalist’ concrete façade to reflect a softer, more caring, contemporary corporate image. Its heavy horizontal concrete structure with precast concrete stairways and balconies formed an oppressive façade that had started deteriorate and required urgent treatment for a refreshing facelift to redefine the organization’s identity.

The Black Bull Steakhouse is a striking A-frame dining establishment set to become an architectural landmark at the new Wood Drive Lifestyle Centre just north of Sunningdale, Cape Town. Wood Drive is a contemporary convenience centre –conceived by Garden Cities developers as an attractive, pedestrian-friendly facility to service the shopping and entertainment needs of the community while enhancing the natural surrounds. It forms part of the greater urban design framework linking the windy West Coast to the developing northern periphery of Cape Town.

The Walter Sisulu University of Science and Technology was formed through the merger of the Border/Eastern Cape Technikon and the University of Transkei in July 2005, and comprises of four campuses situated in Umtata, Buffalo City (East London), Butterworth and Queenstown. Given the cultural heritage of the various campuses including traditional Xhosa villages coupled with the modern materiality of science and technology, the University aims to upgrade the various faculties into a single space, starting with the Engineering Faculty in East London.