Press print

PHOTOGRAPHY SUPPLIED

This project was seeded by the requirement for a new factory and office facility to accommodate the amalgamation of 10 printing-related companies under one roof while responding to a complex set of industrial demands. The Hirt and Carter Group specialises in the digital marketing and printing business and is seen as the national market leader in their field. This project facilitates the businesses’ progressive growth and provides a new environment for the amalgamation of multiple companies under one roof, while allowing space for future acquisitions.

PROGRAMME

In order to derive a cohesive programme, factory services and functional printing spaces were analysed across the 10 amalgamating companies and workshopped to optimise opportunities for sharing. This will maximise functional and spatial efficiency and simultaneously serve to merge many different business cultures. The functional demands of space for raw material storage; a variety of different printing facilities separated by full height partitioning for humidity and temperature control; and fulfilment stores and factory offices to serve factory, graphic design and media units drove the programme. All the variant factory operations were required to share a single receiving point and raw material storage, while two primary process layouts demanded separate despatch areas on each end of the factory.

DESIGN RESPONSE

The conceptual solution takes the form of two attached building components, comprising the printing production factory as a large-scale ‘white box’, and a carefully articulated linear office block foiling its significant bulk on the west side. The design is a formal metaphor in abstract reference to contemporary media print and operating elements, which are integral to the core function of the facility.

The massive factory space is the ‘machine’ of the business and is contained within a hermetically sealed envelope formed by a gently barrelled aperture-less roof, thus promoting control of humidity, dust and operating temperature. The twolevel office components elegantly articulate the blank west façade of the factory, being expressed as a linear ‘print image’ interfacing the approach and street.

The long façade at the Hirt and Carter Group Facility in KwaZulu-Natal is fragmented with randomly arranged, protruding, coloured 'meeting boxes’, creating a whimsical rhythm and the identifying architectural feature.

The curvilinear ends of the office form allude to the traditional printing conveyor process.

The scale of the office building is designed to foil the scale of the factory to appear as a singular form, utilising perforated and folded sun-control screens angled for optimum west sun protection, while internally promoting veiled visual connection to the landscaped exterior. The long façade is fragmented with randomly arranged, protruding, coloured ‘meeting boxes’, creating a whimsical rhythm and the identifying architectural feature.

At the entrance to the offices, a large white angled portal leans outwards to provide protection and thermal shading to the reception atrium area. The design of the office interiors is based on the concept of the corporate ‘agile’ workspace environment, which delivers ‘staff focus’, ‘connect’ and ‘vitality’ spaces to create a dynamic, flexible and stimulating work environment.

The use of bold colour externally and on the office façade imparts an immediate legibility conveying the nature of the complex's use.

The design of the office interiors is based on the concept of an agile workspace to create a flexible and stimulating work environment.

DESIGN DIFFERENTIATORS

An important architectural differentiator in this building is the use of bold colour, used in the highly serviced factory internally to differentiate functional spaces, and externally and on the office façade to convey the nature of the complex’s use. The curvilinear ends of the office form allude to the traditional printing conveyor process and the funky interior design promotes a staff-friendly environment within the setting of a factory context. Within the factory, the sophisticated digital printing equipment, being an impressive installation, called for extensive glazing panels to showcase technical capability to potential clients visiting the facility. All these elements, facilitated within strict cost-control parameters, serve to animate what would ordinarily be a mundane construct in a regular industrial park environment.

WORKPLACE AND SUSTAINABILITY

The shared facilities and services provided in the complex induce a fundamental efficiency, and a reduction in energy and water consumption. These serve to yield an inherent sustainability through significant savings in production and rental costs. Outdoor spaces accessed from canteens, collaborative and meeting spaces, enhance the workplace experience, as do the vibrant interiors in both the offices and factory. Carefully planned spaces across the scheme, while delivering high population densities and excellent efficiency ratios, offer flexible, exciting work environments with significant growth and future change opportunities. The building provides a broad range of facilities and functions to accommodate a large population of various employees.

Through careful design and interrogation of all facets of the business, a fresh, contemporary and vibrant workplace is offered to all occupants.

The funky interior design promotes a friendly staff environment.

The perforated sun control screens promote veiled visual connections to the landscaped exterior.