HARBOUR ARCH

Meet The Gateway To The Mother City

Big, bold, brave, and with a price tag of R16 billion, Harbour Arch is a catalytic, skyline-altering development that will forever change the entrance to Cape Town. In the hope of becoming the neighbourhood of the future, the precinct imagines the largest landscaped urban park in the CBD, with water features, splash parks, bike tracks, skateboarding, outdoor markets, and pedestrian routes that will ultimately provide a direct link from the CBD to the V&A Waterfront, the east city precinct, and eventually to Woodstock. With development commencing in 2020 and the first phase Tower One progressing smoothly, Bentel Associates International shares more about the long-term vision of this gigantic project...

Design brief

The brief from the client, Amdec Group, was to design a worldclass mixed-use development in the Foreshore District of Cape Town. There is a phased approach to the development that will total 200,000 m² of usable area and six buildings upon completion. These six buildings are placed on a seven-storey plinth, with an eight-floor central park.

On an urban scale, the pedestrian interface is very important. Therefore, the ground floor has a public piazza surrounded by retail and restaurants, which becomes a convergence space for all the pedestrian routes crossing the site.

From the first floor to the seventh floor is a structured parking structure that provides cyclical parking for the whole development. Various ramps in and out of the structure enhance ease of movement and links up with the existing road structure of the precinct.

From the ground floor to the eight floor, various vertical circulations take the public up to the central park where there will be restaurants and amenities for residents and the public. This public space is surrounded by two apartment buildings, two hotels, and two office buildings. A total of 482 apartments are provided in the first phase and 482 additional in the second phase. The hotels and office buildings will follow in the subsequent phases. A 10-year development plan is foreseen to complete the whole precinct, which will form the gateway into Cape Town’s CBD where people can live, work, and socialise. This development will accommodate and attract many tourists because of its location close to many city attractions.

Location

Harbour Arch is located where the N1 and N2 freeways converge. Christiaan Barnard Street is on the north-western boundary, and is one of the main routes towards the Foreshore and harbour in a north-south direction.

On the south-western boundary, Hertzog Boulevard acts as the main east-west circulation artery. The development is surrounded by office buildings, including the City Council offices to the south and west.

There are certain urban design guidelines that were put in place at the onset of the design process. While there were no specific requirements for the architecture, the urban parameters include the setbacks of the façades, architectural elements that need to go down to the ground floor, setbacks on the ground floor layout to create public space, and the provision of colonnades and covered walkways.

SUPPLIERS

Curtain wall system

World of Windows 021 551 3235

Aluminium composite panels

Façade Solutions 021 788 2711

Ironmongery dormakaba 021 812 3500

Paint (external)

Dulux 086 033 0111

Paint (internal)

Plascon 086 020 4060

Tiling (internal)

Remake 011 027 5718

Stiles 021 510 8310

Vinyl timber flooring Contifloors 082 706 1576

Joinery

Top Living Kitchens 021 914 3240

Waterproofing

Haefele Waterproofing 021 637 1347

Sanware Lixil Africa 021 637 1347

Post-tensioned slabs

Amsteele Systems 021 534 7340

Shower trays

Marblecast 021 511 0768

HVAC

Daikin 021 528 3500

AMS 021 552 1077

Lifts

Schindler South Africa 011 681 8888

Architecture and the use of space

The brief from the client was to create a contemporary, urban, and pedestrian-friendly development. Although Harbour Arch can be seen as a precinct, consisting of six buildings, it can be read as one building over four city blocks. Three streets (Martin Hammerschlag Way, Louis Gardner Street, and Jack Craig Street) dissect the site and ground floor of the building in an east-west direction. At the moment, the pedestrian movement is non-existent, but by creating an active edge along these streets, people will be pulled into the development. This east-west movement is connected by a north-south arcade underneath the building activated by retail, restaurants, and a public piazza in the middle.

The vertical circulation to the eight floor is placed within the central arcade either side of the piazza. All users, including apartment and hotel residents, get out of the vertical circulation on the eight floor and walk through the park and shops to another set of lifts to take them into the six buildings. This ensures the urban environment is used and a pedestrian culture encouraged as per the New Urbanism theory. Excellent views towards Table Mountain and the ocean can be experienced on the eighth floor and rooftop viewing decks in all the buildings. Various types of apartments are provided, with the bigger units taking advantage of the views. Three levels of parking basements are provided with access from all the surrounding roads.

Double glazing has been allowed for majority of the building envelope, with specific performance glass used on the façades most likely to experience the highest levels of solar insolation, or external noise generated by vehicular traffic on the elevated Nelson Mandela Boulevard (N2).

Shading devices have not been incorporated on these exceptionally high façades, but to offset this, the maximum 15% fenestration area to net floor area per storey has been achieved. Provision has been made for an onsite desalination plant that treats roughly 50% of groundwater to be removed from site, and makes it potable. The resulting brine is then added back to the balance of the ground water and discarded into the ocean.

GORDON VAN DER HEEVER Senior Executive Associate www.bentel.net @bentel_assoc

To maximise economies of scale, the HVAC plant is being designed on a precinct basis, with a chilled water ring main, rather than solely for this first phase building. Electrical consumption can be reduced by efficient use of chilled and preheated water, instead of separate equipment in each building.

Heat pump technology will provide 50% of the total water heating energy to the building, which complies with SANS 10400 pARTxa2 (local code). The overall building energy usage complies with the requirements of SANS10400 Part XA (2011) when compared to a benchmark building of this type.