Bhisho Office Park

Project Description

Situated in one of Cape Town apartheid influenced towns, Bhisho commemorates a vast history of the struggle. An analysis of the site, prompted a new response to the fabric of the town. Isolation of the public is very prevalent in the area, with high rise building, shallow pavements and very little public interaction. A concept of “The middle Ground” emerged. The design was to invert the current contextual exclusion to an inclusive landscape. The building form and spatial planning offers floating pods and slabs, which in turn free up the entire ground storey amplifying the presence of public space and interaction. The pods are then a recreation of Bhisho’s meandering valleys and freedom of form created over years of water streams and winds and history. The building was used to express these concepts in its sensitivity towards human scale, and use of significance and form. While a government building emerges with the gravitas and respect it requires, the architectural form and flow expresses an ever present democratic evolution.