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VDMMA Drives Transformation

of Silo District PRODUCTION: David Napier

Much-celebrated Cape Town-based architectural practice, VDMMA, is approaching completion with its projects in the V&A Waterfront’s Silo District. The area has been developed into an all-encompassing ‘public realm’ for the entire city to enjoy.

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has been the coordination and logistics for the construction of over 100,000 m2 on one development site. This being done with multiple tenants, a large team of consultants, various contractors and subcontractors whilst at the same time accommodating the operational needs of maintaining the wider V&A Waterfront which welcomes more than 24 million visitors each year.

A project like this could potentially become a nightmare for an architect but for Macio Miszewski of VDMMA, a Cape Townbased design and architectural practice which has taken the lead on the project, it has been a dream. He tells Enterprise Africa more about progress in Cape Town, the design capital of the world in 2014, and how the VDMMA team became involved following many years of success in the residential architecture industry.

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As one of the most central, important, prominent, and vital development zones in the Western Cape (and perhaps in South Africa), the V&A Waterfront, specifically its Silo district, has received much attention in the past few years. On completion, it’s estimated that V&A Waterfront shareholders (Growthpoint and the Government Employee Pension Fund, managed by the PIC) will have invested more than R3 billion developing the area, specifically refurbishing a disused 1921-built grain silo, to create a pedestrianised precinct in the heart of the V&A Waterfront.

Development of the area has been split into different phases and in 2013, the Silo district unveiled No.1 Silo, the new home for investment business, Allan Gray.

The 18,500 m2 building achieved a six-star green rating from the

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GBCSA. In the same year, No.2 Silo (a 31-unit apartment building) was completed with four-star rating.

Completion of No.3 Silo recently, saw a further 79 apartments added to the region and No.4 Silo is now home to a Virgin Active Health Club.

No.5 Silo is a 14,500 m2 multitenant office building anchored by PwC and Werksmans. One of the latest projects for the region is No.6 Silo which will soon be home to a 252-key Radisson Red hotel. A highend 27-key Silo Hotel is also nearing completion along with the area’s major draw, the 10,000 m2 Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art (MOCAA). Underneath the whole district lays a super-sized car park and utility structure which has been under development since 2014.

One of the most challenging elements of this development

V&A SILO DISTRICT “We’re busy completing a 55,000 m2 project at the grain silo precinct,” he says. “That commission came about as a result of a project manager at the Waterfront catching sight of a block of apartments that we had designed. He approached us, we discussed ideas, and we’ve been realising this project for the last eight years.

“We were originally appointed to design the No.1 Silo which is the HQ of Allan Gray Investment Management (in JV with RBA), but we made it clear that we couldn’t do it in isolation from the rest of the project. The project manager agreed and the V&A Waterfront backed the idea so we formalised a proposal for the whole precinct area. We were then appointed to complete work on silos two, three four and five, and we partnered with other architects (with RBA, MDL and JP) on work meaning we covered the entire precinct layout.”

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Asked if the project has been generally well-received by the Cape Town public, Miszewski explains that the intention has always been to create a positive public space and, so far, feedback has been fantastic.

“There was recently a launch of a small retail part of No.5 Silo, it was a freezing Cape winter’s night, and there were thousands of people who discovered this whole new precinct in the city and were excited, giving very positive feedback. People could see it’s not a private commercial domain; it’s a public realm and the city is moving in and enjoying it.”

Currently, VDMMA is finalising work on apartment blocks, but Miszewski hopes this is not the end of the company’s involvement at the Waterfront.

“The apartment blocks are the end of the project and we’re mainly working through inspection lists. There’s other work in the V&A Waterfront, which is the biggest developer in the Western Cape, and they have enormous bulk to continue expansion,” he says.

is, and we were published and from that came our first commission for a one-off, upmarket residence.

“Following that, we grew through word-of-mouth and continued to produce one-off, single residential, high-end, bespoke houses for clients, mainly around the affluent suburbs of Cape Town, on the slopes of Table Mountain,” he recalls.

The project which saw VDMMA win the national award (Institute of Architects Award of Merit) was a residential undertaking, working directly with a property owner. Named ‘the Sun House’, the Tamboerskloof-based project was completed in 1995 and became recognised as one of the country’s most unique ideas, catapulting VDMMA into the spotlight.

The company followed this success in 1999 with the design

of ‘the Tree House’, a multi-award winning residential home in Higgovale.

“The Tree House was a referral from our previous clients with the Sun House. It was a fantastic project to be involved with; the clients had an inexplicable belief in us and allowed us a freedom that we didn’t believe existed. I remember presenting the idea to them, explaining about five structural columns, like trees, with the building arranged beneath a canopy-style roof, and they said, ‘you must be crazy’ and followed that by saying ‘we love it’,” says Miszewski.

Since its establishment, VDMMA has completed projects for single property owners, developers, businesses, corporates, and municipalities. “We set up the business with the objective of

DESIGNED TO LAST VDMMA (Van Der Merwe Miszewski Architects) is the brainchild of its namesakes and its history, littered with world-class projects, contributed to its appointment as the lead in the Silo District.

“The practice was founded with my partner, Anya Van Der Merwe, and it was just the two of us along with a couple of helpers and a couple of students, primarily involved in very small residential alterations and small projects,” details Miszewski. “For a brief period of time, we collaborated with my father who was also an architect who had recently retired, and that sustained us briefly. We then won a national competition which was for the design of an ideal South African house, whatever on earth that

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practicing design. We set out on the belief that whatever needs designing, we can do it. Whether it’s an alteration of a small apartment or the construction of an urban precinct, we’re not afraid of it,” Miszewski asserts.

CAREFULLY PLANNED EXPANSION Commercial success and industry recognition led to VDMMA growing its project base and employee base over the years but Miszewski is keen to ensure the business does not become like a machine and pursues very carefully-considered growth strategies.

“We have always avoided commercialising the practice and we haven’t aggressively pursued that type of expansion,” he says.

“Since the mid-‘90s, we’ve retained our profile as a studio of 10-15 people. We are a small designdedicated architectural studio. We have a flat hierarchical structure, we work in an open-plan space, and we can design whatever anyone brings to us in a workshop atmosphere.”

Has this deliberate and thoughtful approach to business development stifled growth for the company, bottlenecking capacity? Apparently not, with VDMMA among some of the most sought-after architectural businesses in South Africa and also attracting demand from potential international clients.

“We were approached by a Kenyan business which was looking for expertise in convention centre design. We have that experience through our work on the original phase of Cape Town International Convention Centre which started in 2000 and finished in 2004. Since 2012, we’ve been working on the expansion of that centre, heading slowly towards completion.

“We collaborated with that Kenyan business on design of a convention centre but that idea

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fell through. Subsequently, we’ve bid on other projects in Kenya and we have built a good relationship so that we can understand opportunities in that part of the world,” Miszewski explains.

“We were approached by a company from the Middle East for our convention centre expertise, we were approached by a company from Morocco for a high-end residential retreat but both projects are now on hold. We do a lot of work in Johannesburg, primarily in residential. We designed the De Beers mining headquarters in Jo’burg. If there is a need for us to expand into other regions, areas, or nations, we could and we would.

However, we remain rooted in Cape Town,” he adds.

VDMMA: ACADEMIC PEOPLE One of the major challenges set out in front of many companies right now is the ability to recruit skilled staff. 90% of the companies we talk to list recruitment as one of the most challenging aspects of business. Fortunately, VDMMA is not pegged back by the so-called ‘skills gap’ and receives a constant steam of first-class applicants. Miszewski puts this down to the company’s involvement in South Africa’s educational sphere.

“We’re fortunate as we receive non-stop applications as we have a track record with a reputation for being a design-orientated practice,” he says. “We also have a non-stop stream of students from the University of Cape Town, and also from Port Elizabeth and Gauteng, who come to complete their professional training in our offices. At least three of our current permanent people completed their student practical training and then came back to us. We are closely connected to the academic profession in SA; I regularly sit on jury panels for thesis presentations

at University of Bloemfontein, and that is where a lot of the resources in our practice come from. We have also given presentations and talks about our work at the Universities of NMMU, Wits and KZN.” As well as a sound understating of the industry and a first-class education, those looking to represent VDMMA must have a particular design-orientated thought process to back up any proposal and this is, according to Miszewski, perhaps harder to come by.

“We do require technical expertise and an ability to discharge work, but there’s also a mindset that is required for a studio environment like ours as opposed to a larger commercial environment,” he says.

“People are important but not too difficult. Our bigger problem is people outside of the business – difficult clients, consultants who don’t listen, or planning authorities who are belligerent – those are where the bigger problems in development lay,” he adds.

ALARMING ECONOMY With major projects completed and underway, more flagship builds being prepped right now, a strong and stable employee base, and a reputation for quality, you may think that everything is runs in the favour of VDMMA but Miszewski points out that a major challenge faced by the company is that of the local economy. Officially dipping into technical recession in the first quarter of 2017, the South African economy is weak and this does have an impact on the architectural industry.

“It has terrible consequences on the cost of material, the cost of production, the availability of labour, and the quality of labour.

It creates an environment that is litigious and fraught with anxiety.

But we have to continue and try to

No. 3 Silo Apar tments, Silo District, V&A Waterfront. Architect: VDMMA & MDL / Interior Design: Source Interior Brand Architecture Oggie FSC European Oak Legno Herringbone finished with WOCA Denmark Extra White Oil - 15/4 x 122 x 610mm

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get better at what we do,” he says.

“Projects are being put on hold, there’s a tremendous amount of negativity but our practice has survived eight recessions since 1991. In fact, 1991 was a recession so we started in a recession and I’m fortunate enough to say that the work we are doing is, in a sense, dislocated from the overall trends.”

The nature of the company’s ‘high-end and one-off’ work, positions VDMMA’s health in a space that seems, to date, to not be reliant on government outlay, where much of the spending cuts in the architectural space have occurred.

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The size of the business, and the aforementioned unique growth strategy, has resulted in the ability to remain nimble and change direction quickly, avoiding tedious situations.

“The Western Cape is viewed differently to the rest of the country and we are currently embarking on two new projects, one is onsite and one is far-progressed with documentation, and they are both apartment complexes for a client from another part of SA who sees Cape Town as a positive place to invest,” the Director details.

“Nationally, we are in dire straits and things get more and more bizarre,

driven by machinations in the political domain but we are confident that there is enough opportunity in our core markets to sustain through the challenging times.

“We’ve remained small enough to be nimble, so that we avoid going down the hire and fire route. For major projects, we would usually partner in a JV style with another practice to share the production load while maintaining the design lead. I don’t see many projects of that size coming around soon so we will focus on our small group, working on particular projects, for clients who operate outside of the

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larger political crisis that envelopes the country,” he adds.

This is evidenced in the work which will begin shortly in the Cape Winelands where VDMMA will design a striking farmhouse in a vineyard. “We’re busy completing documents; it’s a bespoke, highend, one-off project and that takes us to our roots; designing directly in collaboration with the owners, in a natural setting that is indescribably beautiful.”

So, while work at the V&A Waterfront’s Silo District draws to a close, the future continues to shine for Cape Town’s own

VDMMA, despite the economic woes facing many. The business strategy developed to encourage a philosophy of design, and the ability to wow clients with individuality has resulted in an award-winning business that is recognised across South Africa’s industry, and further afield. But, according to Miszewski, there is much more that can be done.

“I would go on the word of my peers and my colleagues and I am happy to hear them talk about VDMMA as one of the top, unique design practices in the country,” he says. “If we are viewed as a studio

that has an identifiable design ethos, then I feel we are getting to where I want to go. But nothing is finished. I think we are recognised for the right things but we would never sit back on anything that has apparently been achieved,” he concludes.

VDMMA +27 21 423 5829 email@vdmma.com www.vdmma.com

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I founded the business in 1991 with Anya van der Merwe, and in the beginning it was busy and challenging; I worked three jobs at the same time. I was a part-time studio assistant at the University of Cape Town, I was working part-time for another large practice in Cape Town on a particular project, and I was working on our own projects for VDMMA. “When people ask me ‘when did you become interested in architecture?’ my answer is ‘shortly after I was born’. I grew up in an architectural household and there were books and journals around all the time. My father was a passionate modernist and he believed in the new era. He survived the Second World War, graduated from University in Liverpool and emigrated to SA with a fantastic optimism, believing that the construction industry was the only tool to rebuild the world after the war. He influenced me and I realised that architecture influences all spheres of life so I automatically fell into studying it and automatically fell into practicing it.

“I have always had an interest in construction and was very fortunate to have worked for Arup Associates in London where I was mentored by Sir Philip Dowson who had a fantastically pragmatic way of thinking about how buildings are put together and what they are made of. I refer to that time as my ‘university of practice’ as I had completed the ‘theoretical stuff’ and was now becoming closer to the act of building.

“I fear the anonymity of mediocrity.

I would rather be recognisable and controversial than anonymous and mediocre.”

DIRECTOR OF VDMMA

MACIO MISZEWSKI www.enterprise-africa.net / 9

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