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P ROJ EC T #2 RCL FOO DS O FFICES
A dominant over-sailing roof caps and frames the transparent atrium while angled supports signify the building's entrance.
Food for thought The new offices of leading food producer RCL Foods required EPA to create an active and exciting work environment to help catalyse the company’s ambition to become Africa’s best and largest food company. PHOTOGRAPHY SUPPLIED
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his project was undertaken in the framework of an extraordinary collaboration of the developer/landlord/ contractor, tenant, architect, interior designer, branding alchemist and technical team. Key to advancing the conceptual approach for the workplace was an appreciation that the building was to be a pivotal part of creating a new culture for an amalgamated business of five individual corporate acquisitions. Driven by a desire to create Africa’s best and largest food company in the future, the directors of RCL Foods commenced weaving a non-corporate culture around the principles that people are the
business and that the workplace environment should attract and retain the best human resource talent available. Working with the RCL branding alchemist and the tenant engagement of interior design company novospace – the interior design division of EPA – from the inception of the design proved to be an excellent decision as the stage was set for a fully integrated concept origination.
and space-planning-flexibility demands being central to the physical programme, the need for a multiplicity of different meeting and collaborative spaces and a focus on food were imperatives. A desire for spatially connected workspaces with emphasis on providing a focal and legible public interface was expressed, together with the need to create a variety of functionally usable external spaces.
PROGRAMME The new offices – required to accommodate 700 people with an emphatic directive to create a bespoke environment – needed to exude the culture of the business at every possible level. With growth
DESIGN RESPONSE Arranged over three levels of structured parking, the office building displays an interlocking sectional typology that is generated around a central linear atrium. Continued next page
WWW.LEADINGARCHITECTURE.CO.ZA OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018 19
