architecture - Bhisho Premier's Office Complex
architecture - Bhisho Premier's Office Complex |
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“The first big idea, which goes back to the start of the Enlightenment, is that the right to the city is a basic human right. The second, flowing from the first, is the right to be part of the city spectacle. The spectacle is as old and as modern, as the city itself… It gives people ideas, new ideas about how to look and how to move, ideas about being free and being oneself and being with each other.” Marshall Berman
Engine of the province The opportunity to develop the Premier’s office on the given site responds to the brief by identifying the following critical design imperatives:
The implication for this project is that it be contextualised within a proposition for the wider urban plan and that the ensuing urban design be threaded into the Premier's complex with the inclusion of public places that engender social interaction and, specifically, mediation between the public and the provincial authorities. Site development follows on from the urban plan by responding to the same imperatives: the definition of the public/private interface, prioritisation of pedestrian over vehicular access, climatic response and symbolic rooting of the historical, cultural and political landscape. The form of our built space – The Premier’s Complex - was shaped by the un-built space through the creation of a public plaza at the intersection of urban axes on Independence Avenue. Here the building complex steps back to welcome and ‘hear’ the vox populi. Our newly established green, pedestrian cross-axis encourages people into the public plaza from province and city alike, by bridging the two routes and suggesting a link beyond the city - from the Amatola Mountains to the west and the Indian ocean to the east. Symbol of Development Through Unity The physical heart of the design: the symbolic crucible building, housing the auditorium, serves as an inspirational symbol of the new democracy in which divergent views are entertained. The crucible building represents the melting pot in which the previously separate histories and identities of all people – but specifically the peoples of the Eastern Cape – are alchemically refined into something more beautiful and meaningful than the sum of their parts. Like a stone thrown in a pond the ripple effect of this germinal idea manifests as markings, measures of progress, ramifying across the landscape. It becomes a physical manifestation of what it means to be modern, providing a home for the expression of newfound individual identities. The precinct unshackles itself from adherence to a rigid geometry as not only a poetic unshackling from past bonds, but an inference that democracy is fluid and transparent by definition. The rammed earth walls are chosen not only for their thermal mass and hearkening back to traditional construction, but because the striking layers expressed in the finish symbolise the accretion of history. Of particular note is the sun screen of the premier’s building which was directly inspired by traditional Xhosa beadwork, in particular the inkciyo. That this façade faces the House of Traditional leaders is not coincidental. The Complex thus serves as a tangible urban tool for democratic process and service delivery, it both shapes and has been shaped by the unique character of the Eastern Cape area. The Premier’s Complex becomes a symbolic manifestation of the Eastern Cape slogan of “Development Through Unity”. The purpose of the office design was to maximise natural light, minimise artificial light and coordinate thermal efficiency. We proposed the use of a centralised mass cooling ventilation system in conjunction with a geothermal energy system. Bhisho has a very moderate climate which provides ideal conditions in utilizing mass cooling storage materials such as rocks and dense concrete plant room structures to provide a means of “free cooling” to the general office areas. |
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