August 2013
CONSTRUCTION WORLD
44
Green Star rated
building
The new building will seek a 4
Star Green Star SA Certified Rating
which recognises best practices.
“We have the right professional
team to engineer the building for
energy efficiency.
The orientation of the building
is fairly harsh as it has a significant
east and west façade. Those are
dealt with adequately in terms of
sun-screening and solar protection
and high performance glazing,”
says Steenekamp.
The new building will also aim
to maximise the health of those
that will inhabit it.“We have change
rooms so people can cycle to work
and run during lunch – and space
for people to park their bicycles. All
this is to create a sustainable spirit,”
says Pellegrini.
Obstacles
Building in an operational precinct
can be tricky, but Steenekamp says
that it has been achieved with very
little disruption. “Fortunately there
is an adjacent site to the north
where the site establishment is – as
opposed to the boulevard itself.”
There was little excavation as the
building is built on the platform
that was pre-existing.
The site is bounded by an exist-
ing basement structure and on the
other side by the district cooling
plant (the entire Melrose Arch
precinct has a centralised chilling
plant as well as a standby power
plant). “All of these are in an exist-
ing structure that is on the highway
side of the building – the newbuild-
ing fits in between. Those systems
could not have any downtime – so
it was a challenge to reinforce the
new structure inside the function-
ing plant.”
Contribution to the
Melrose Arch precinct
“The new building starts to com-
plete the precinct.There is currently
over 300 000 m
2
of developable
area still left in Melrose Arch. Be-
tween 100 000 and 200 000 m
2
of this will be office space. The
precinct has been static for a while
in terms of new development.
“It has created a different way
in which the buildings relate to
the boulevard edge towards Corlett
Drive: the sense of transparency
of the new building is one
that you hope will be carried
through in other developments,”
concludes Steenekamp.
●
Architectural impressions of the
completed building.
project profile
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