PSS

SWELLENMARK

  

 

 

The panels above are all for Swellenmark, a partly open air mall like Wiillowbridge, situated in Swellendam.  These are in order, the first tasks I were given.  The first two were existing drawings for which I had to draw a ceiling layout and a bulkhead respectively and the third is a Mini Sub-Station which - the first drawing I had to do from a clean sheet.  The two drawings thereafter are of a cupboard which I had to design, detail and specify.  It's purpose is to conceal a fire hose reel.  This was exiting; the first thing I designed that was going to be uniquely built.  The Sketchup view doesn't show how it extends to the ceiling but the drawings do.  Th esecons last drawing shows the adjacent buildings.  I had to lay them out and shape and size them to see if it could fit a possible future parking ratio.  The last drawing is a specification layout of all the signage in the mall.

DE VILLE CENTRE

The three drawings above were proposals for the De Ville Center in Durbanville, which one of the architects in the office was finishing up in the beginning of the year.  I was asked to design stainless steel bumper rails to protect vulnerable windows from trolleys and bicycle parking racks in keeping with stainless steel details already in place.  I went to measure Pick & Pay trolleys in order to design the perfect rail and I found enough info on the internet to design the bicycle racks with.  These were just proposals to see what such things would cost.

LOOP STREET

First Sketchup model that I built for the office.  I was given sketch and told to upload it into Google Earth (also a first for me. 


ISA CARSTENS

Basement

Ground Floor

First Floor

Lofts

 The four faint drawings above are of the Isa Carstens Res in Stellenbosch.  The client needed basic drawings of all the floors to use as fire escape plans.  The existing drawings were not done in layers, so it took a few days to assign everything to the right layers in order to switch information on and off to get a nice clean drawing.

THE VINEYARDS DRIEHOEK / VIERHOEK

 

These six images were my first attempts at overlaying Sketchup views and photos.  The guy who built the model did not have the contours, so the perspective is not correct but it served its purpose for the council to do a visual impact assessment.  The design has since changed.  The buildings were lowered and the chapel and its spire omitted.  It started off as a mixed use development.  The top two images are of a mixed residential development that was planned in conjunction just a couple hundred meters away.  Below are some basic house and apartment layouts which I had to draw up to go with the presentation.

BP CENTRE

View from Long Street

East Elevation

North Elevation

South Elevation

West Elevation

The six images above represent my biggest learning curve of the year.  I did a lot of research about multilevel car parks.  The challenge was to build a model for which there was no design, for a car park novice to figure out how to get cars up there and to do it respectfully.  The intricate ramps are mostly hidden but they're there and it took a million man hours to make it work.  I started from scratch without a full set of drawings of Revel Fox's BP Center and ended up with a presentation which we believe clinched the job - if it ever goes ahead.

MY OWN CALDER-LIKE KINETIC SCULPTURE

This video is my animation debut.  Boogertman + Partners (Cape Town) was shortlisted for a competition to design a new Chevron head office in Century City.  In the design it was decided to place a kinetic sculpture in the center of the main garden.  I was asked to design an Alexander Calder-like sculpture.  It felt awkward at first but then I remembered that Picasso once said, "Good artists copy, great artists steal."  Through the exercise I got so intrigued with the mechanics of the thing that I wanted to see it move.  I decided to put together a stop frame animation which was part of the final presentation.  It took extremely long to produce a few seconds of video at a low frame rate, but its a joyous thing. 

BANGHOEK STUDENT RES

The panel above represents the second biggest learning curve of my year.  It is the addition of a first floor and a small two storey unit at the back of an existing student commune in Stellenbosch.  It was prepared for council, and although it has not been submitted yet, I know I learnt a lot.  From visiting the site and measuring the building, all through quite a few revisions, I gained valuable experience.

 KNYSNA CROSSING (RETAIL)

The four images above were for a proposal for a retail development with some apartments in Knysna.  The were no drawings, only a conceptual plan showing the sizes of the buildings and their function.  Because the client was not paying yet there was no detail to work from.   I only had to produce a few nice images to give an idea of what it might look like, so the interiors and other elevations are all unresolved.