Arch of glass

PHOTOGRAPHY PETER ORAVECZ

Umhlanga Arch is a R1.3bn mixed-use development in Umhlanga’s Ridgeside precinct in KwaZulu-Natal spearheaded by the Multiply Group. It is a destination-focused development located on a prominent, steep corner site on a busy intersection, which offers arguably the precinct’s best panoramic city and ocean views.

The building has cut a striking figure on the Durban coastline for years and is nearing completion. It includes premium AAA grade offices within the glass facade of the arch allowing spectacular ocean and city views, luxury apartments, first-class retail, an authentic food hall dining experience along a European inspired cobbled high-street, an SMG BMW motor dealership and South Africa’s first Hilton Garden Inn hotel.

While Umhlanga Arch is positioned prominently on the corner of Umhlanga Rocks Drive and Ncondo Place, the eponymous ‘arch’ allows views ‘through’ the building and provides glimpses of life on top of the podium reflected in the glass.

From the podium roof, the passing traffic and life around Umhlanga Arch is reflected in the glass on the underside of the "bridge" of the arch.

The enormity of scale of this 90 000m 2 project, its prominence of position and fact that it has the highest building rights in the precinct demanded a bold design and landmark place-making design from Craft of Architecture (COA), the architects of Umhlanga Arch. The vision behind Umhlanga Arch is a “live, work, stay, play” development to serve the diverse people of South Africa and international travellers alike. The Hilton Group, the SMG BMW dealership and the developers all had their own briefs and specifications, which had to simultaneously be combined into a symbiotic whole. COA’s aim involved harnessing the potential of Umhlanga Arch’s mixed-use offering to create a vibrant sense of community through an eclectic people-centric design.

COA designed a striking structure with two towers – one 30 storeys high – and an iconic curving arch, both set on an eight-storey plinth. The top of the residential tower, 109m from the ground, includes a private members’ club, the Pencil Club, which hosts a roof-top swimming pool.

Conceptually, the buildings function more like a town square or piazza than a single building, combining a few different design languages that have been brought together and resolved as they all spill out into a shared public space.

The eight-storey podium houses parking as well as the street-facing SMG BMW motor dealership, which directly addresses the intersection of Umhlanga Drive and Ncondo Place. It also resolves the steep slope of the site, which drops dramatically from Umhlanga Drive at the top to the street below.

The podium also includes several loft apartments on the sea-facing side, which brings life and an urban lifestyle quality to the façade. The iconic arch building, which gives the development its name and identity, forms the office component. The towers house the hotel and residential apartments.

Shop-fronts and restaurants line the rooftop piazza as if it were a busy urban high-street, while the offices, residential apartments and hotel spill out onto it, activating the shared space and creating a sense of community.

The podium rooftop forms a green park with landscaping and trees, lined with restaurants, shops and a market building.

These facilities not only shelter the open public roof space from prevailing winds, making it hospitable and comfortable, but also activate the rooftop to create an urban high street. The offices, residential block and hotel all open and spill out onto this shared area that can also be accessed from the street below via stairs and escalators, which have been cleverly shifted to the peripheries of the parking level to draw in shoppers from the pedestrianised sidewalks and the wider precinct. The peripheries of the building along the sidewalks are also made welcoming and pedestrian-friendly with the addition of canopies and retail displays, bringing human scale and animation to the streetfacing exterior of the building.

Apart from imparting a strong identity, the curved arch, which has a reflective glass façade, fulfils two other functions. It allows views ‘through’ the building, particularly from the key vantage point of the upper circle of Umhlanga Rocks Drive. This view also provides glimpses of the treetops on top of the podium and an indication of the active life in the green park. The underside of the bridge section of the arch also, however, reflects the life and activity to passers-by, while providing those on the rooftop with a sense of the passing traffic and activity on the street below. This provides a sense of connection to the life happening in the Arch city to the outer urban precinct.

It is worth noting that technically and structurally, bringing together the separate components and grids – the towers and arch above a podium with space for parking requiring as few columns as possible – is a feat of planning and engineering. Its success was greatly assisted by the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) systems employed by the architects to coordinate the complex collaborative nature of the project. The eclectic character of the building, with its combination of identities and components, is resolved in its conception as an urban plan rather than a single, unified design. Not only does this approach allow each stakeholder expression, but also allows the building to function with an authentic sense of community, fostering the social life and humanity necessary to animate it and bring it to life. The height of the towers and the bold, iconic design of the arch itself ensures the landmark quality befitting its prominent position.

PROFESSIONAL TEAM

PROJECT MANAGER/PRINCIPAL AGENT: M3 Africa Consulting ARCHITECT: Craft of Architecture QUANTITY SURVEYOR: MLC Quantity Surveyors STRUCTURAL AND CIVIL ENGINEER: Arup ELECTRICAL ENGINEER: CKR Consulting Engineers WET SERVICES ENGINEER: CKR Consulting Engineers HVAC ENGINEER: Spoormaker & Partners LIFT ENGINEER: Spoormaker & Partners FIRE ENGINEER: CKR Consulting Engineers TRAFFIC ENGINEER: DMA Group LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: Uys & White ICT SPECIALIST CONSULTANT: SIG Projects