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A ROUND-UP OF RECENTLY COMPLETED PROJECTS AND UNVEILED DESIGNS STANDARD CHARTERED BANK, ACCRA A corporate head office development for Standard Chartered Bank in Accra, designed by South African practice MDS Architecture, is an iconic addition to Ghana’s landscape. Bringing the latest international trends to the fore, the 14-storey building offers 12 000m2 GLA. Donald McGillivray, a partner at MDS Architecture, says the new build is uniquely Ghanaian in identity, while ensuring compliance with international standards and design elements for Standard Chartered Bank. The building is located on the intersection of two major roads in Accra, close to the CBD and a short drive from the airport. As such it is a highly visible and prominent site. The structure offers five levels of parking to house 584 vehicles with eight floors of sub-divisible open-plan offices for Standard Chartered Bank, as well as other tenants. As such, the building design needed to conform to Standard Chartered Bank’s worldwide design criteria by applying global specifications for all their buildings. Despite ensuring compliance with global norms, the Standard Chartered building’s interior has been specifically tailored to celebrate its Ghanaian location. This identity is evoked through vernacular patterns throughout the building. McGillivray says that the design is contemporary and features a double-glazed curtain wall façade. “The parking structure is clad in a naturally ventilated screen, which brings to mind vibrant West African fabrics in the pattern design,” he says. This pattern is also infused on the glazing to the office façade through a process called fritting, which involved pre-printing the pattern on the inside face of the double glazing during the manufacturing process. “In addition to the aesthetic value, fritting assists with heat and light emissions,” he explains. The ground floor includes a retail bank and a coffee shop, which opens onto an outside terrace on the street. “In this way, the building’s ground floor becomes part of the urban fabric and integrates into the sidewalk,”
The building design includes measures to ensure that it is self-sufficient – it has full generator back-up, a borehole facility with water chlorinated from boreholes and stored in domestic and fire water tanks in the building. This will supplement municipal water and ensure uninterrupted supply when municipal water is not available. A sewer treatment plant has been
says McGillivray. Landscaping has been kept simple to maximise visibility and existing trees on the perimeter have been retained. The hardscape paving design is pedestrian friendly and maximises accessibility to the public.
incorporated on site. LED lighting has been specified throughout to save energy costs, the building is thermally efficient with double-glazed façades and a sun/shade co-efficient has been applied to the glass. www.mdsarch.co.za
66 LEADINGARCHITECTURE & DESIGN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019
