Page 6 - Landscape-Issue125

PROJECT

V & A WATERFRONT SILO DISTRICT:

PLACEMAKING INTERVENTIONS

The 80,000sqm mixed-use Silo District in the V&A Waterfront is Cape Town’s art,
culture and design district. The area comprises six silo buildings encircling the
historic grain silo now housing the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa
(MOCAA).

he buildings form a new public plaza
Project Team around the museum, creating an
Client: V & A Waterfront Holdings (Pty) Ltd Tinviting pedestrianised space on the
Landscape Architects & Principal Agent: Planning Partners dockside along the working harbour with
Landscape Contractor: Contours Group its warehouses, cranes, hoists, gantries,
Consulting Engineers: Sutherland Engineering shed, containers, ships and functional
Quantity Surveyors: BTKM industrial archaeology. The planning of the
Construction Health & Safety Agents: Ecosafety Consulting Silo District is architecturally contemporary,
full of purpose and designed to maximise
location and comfort.
Buildings surrounding Zeitz MOCAA
include the No.1 Silo, a commercial building
and corporate head office for Allan Gray,
No.2 Silo with 31 residential units and No.
3 Silo with 79 residential units. No.4 Silo
is home to the first state-of-the-art Virgin
Classic Health Club in the province, No.5
Silo houses commercial offices and No.6
Silo houses the new Radisson RED hotel.
The V&A Waterfront has taken a three-
pronged approach to development at the
Silo District, focusing on providing a mixed-
use space in which people can live, work
and play. The tenant mix of the area reflects
the creativity, design, art and culture
embodied by the museum. The new district
has also set new sustainability benchmarks
with two buildings awarded 6-Star ratings
by the GBCSA. The innovative district sea
water plant heats and cools the buildings
by using energy from the sea.
The landscape component, designed
by Jaco Jordaan of Planning Partners,
complements the silo buildings, the hotel
and the Zeitz MOCAA Museum, the latter
being housed inside the grain silo complex,
with the hotel located on the top floors.
The silo circle is a large plaza around the
museum and hotel, a public open space
with the landscaping situated on a ‘super-
structure deck’, according to Jacques Dohse
of Planning Partners. Parking garages are
located underneath the deck.
Brief and scope of work
The client requested Planning Partners to
reassess the area in order to refurbish it and
encourage better use of the space. Says
Dohse: “Urban spaces are not static and
need to be refurbished every five to ten
years in order to improve them, encourage
the public to use them and re-evaluate how
the landscaping has performed over time.”
This is particularly pertinent here, as the silo
Top down view of the new lawn space, planters and hexagonal hardscape elements in the seating and district site is windy, constricted and mostly
paving cast in shade.

4 Landscape SA • Issue 125 2023