Corobrik used in new "world class" SAPS facility

"The brief was in no way open ended and set out, within strict criteria, specific areas and sized accommodation to suite the particular needs of the end-user," said project architect Neal Fisher. The brief was developed through numerous workshops held between the design team and end-user, facilitated by the client and finalised through stringent design reports and sketch plan committee approvals. "The need for design workshops was crucial in planning the relationship between the two key divisions to be housed within the building, that being 10111 and Radio Technical, and the core functioning between them," he explained.

The need for the new building was evident due to the fact that the existing facilities at Mount Road were inadequate in terms of size. The new facility was necessary to deal with large, sensitive electronic equipment, the value of which exceeded the building threefold, and all its related supporting functions and requirements to be housed within a single, dedicated "high tech" building to expand SAPS operations to provide a significantly improved and more efficient call-out rate to the Eastern Cape and, in turn, set a precedent for future development nationally.

Core function is to communicate

The new building is positioned on a 2.4ha site surrounded by secondary arterial roads to the south and open space to the north. The site, being one of the highest points in the area, provides great opportunities with respect to panoramic views across the bay. It can be viewed from the N2, a high traffic route that links William Moffet express way with North End and adjacent suburbs. The 50m communications mast has also become a landmark in the area and a beacon for the site. The project's core function is to communicate, nationally, between different key high sites as part of the SAPS' drive to eliminate crime. The Eastern Cape is the first region to receive a facility of this kind with prime emphasis placed on systems management. "The project is high profile and considered 'mission critical' with every electronic and mechanical system having to be 100% redundant in terms of failures to provide a self-sufficient uninterrupted service. The facility also houses a radio technical workshop to repair and improve on electronic equipment within squad vehicles which forms an integral part of communication between the 10111 Call Centre and public at large," explained Fisher.

The building's footprint is orientated along an east/west axis aligning itself to the north as opposed to the sites north-east boundaries. According to Fisher, this juxtaposition intentionally reinforces the building's form as a pavilion with its massing defined by the levels of the site. Access is from the north-east directly along the buildings' central axis, allowing views though the building to the west. The central call centre/radio control is perceived as the hub of the facility and designed as an independent entity inside the space of the building's structure, defined by a single mono-pitched roof. All supporting accommodation feeds off this central space, taking advantage of the views and promoting transparency throughout the facility.

Choice of materials

The underlying design intension was to create awareness through detail of materials across a limited palette. All materials of which were detailed to be exposed and taken back to their most basic form, brought together to produce a sense of proportion and space that could blur the boundaries of envelope both externally and internally. The client's brief to provide an uninterrupted space for call takers required an intricate steel structure both to span and support a service platform above over an area of 800m². Within the call centre space two primary steel girder beams are visible with supporting steel bearers being concealed within the ceiling void. The concrete-framed structures that flank this central entity delicately interface with this core using carefully detailed steel walkways.

Although conceptually there was a need for transparency, it was also fundamental to ground the building to provide a firm base to work from. This was achieved by detailing the four outer corners of the buildings structure in face brick. These corners wrap around textured plaster and seemingly elevate just off the surface of the surrounding finishes through a recessed shadow line of raw terelyne to help soften its connection. "The bottom two courses of face brick above the recessed plinth is, in essence, a result of the need for a composite beam to form the cantilever in the brickwork," noted Fisher. The brick-on-edge and soldier course in the brick work rests on a continuous length of 5mm galvanised steel plate - over the full width of the wall - and a concrete cavity filled to the height of the soldier course. "The differing course configuration also facilitated the need to tie back into the required brick courses of the inner skins," he said.

The choice in using brickwork was also taken a step further through the use of carefully detailed reveals and the combination of travertine and satin-faced bricks. Light naturally reflects off smooth surfaces, which intentionally created a "mosaic" effect across the face brick facades. Corobrik's Terracotta Travertine and Satin mix, batched 50/50 was specified for the exterior brickwork, while internally, Corobrik's Firelight Satin was used.

Internalised purpose-made galvanised steel brick shelves, fixed to concrete ring beams, allowed for full height brick work with horizontal expansion joints at roughly 3.5m centres. These shelves also allowed the face brick work to continue across cantilevering slabs to allow the brick to wrap around the scratch plastered recesses.

Furthermore, all openings are finished with header courses forming the side reveals and brick-on-edge courses to the lintel and sill of openings. Lintel and sill brick work intentionally project past the face of the facades as capping pieces. "These face brick lintels and sills are taken through into plastered sections as well," he pointed out. Slit windows are expressed using a centrally recessed panel of scratched plaster to highlight window bays across the facades. Openings within deep 640mm thick walls were bridged using purpose designed voluted precast concrete lintels, the bases of which are detailed using header bond. The versatility of face brick was significant in allowing the architects to utilise the material successfully in many guises in the radio control centre.

The central, outer and inner zones of the building were left plastered and simplified in terms of detail to highlight the underlying central steel roof structure and space that is allowed to flow beneath. The canopy is elevated seamlessly to connect the two masses of the buildings form. Although the steel roof structure interfaces with standard materials and finishes, very little conventional engineering was followed. In most cases, aesthetical preferences manipulated the structural designs resulting in many elements, particularly steel, having to be considered in a different light. "Due to budgetary constraints, the choice to adopt an industrial aesthetic/ideal was considered to enable the use of a limited palette of materials, as well as colours," said Fisher. Extravagant finishes were rejected and rather made allowance for the detail between element and surrounding space to speak for itself. This "industrial" aesthetic was followed through into the design of supporting walkways, composite beam structures and staircases. All steel was left galvanized as its finishing coat to re-enforce the mechanical beauty of the steel and to increase the maintenance cycle of the lattice structures. Walkways that surround the central space, although elaborate, were economised by utilising the surrounding moment connections between connecting pipe sections and concrete reception zones of the two blocks.

Below the central connecting roof structure lays the heart of the building in the form of the radio control/call centre and was designed as such. The control centre is housed within a face brick box detailed to be transparent from all sides. To highlight the "box" as a further layer to the inner space of the building, the face brick in this case was changed to a lighter shade and all faces being of a satin finish. Curtain walls were also changed from the surrounding grey to black.

Going for green

"The building has been registered with the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) with the intension of achieving a four-star Green Star SA - Office "as built" accreditation that would recognise the building as being best practice," said Fisher. As the project is high profile and considered mission critical, a core feature of the building is systems management. It was, therefore, important to manage these systems and the building's green initiatives, he said. "A central Building Management System (BMS) was incorporated to drive, monitor and record all operational data of the building, which includes electrical/mechanical services and water consumption to ensure their optimal performance and use. Other noticeable features would be rain water harvesting for 100% irrigation requirements, double glazing, solar glare control, acoustics, steel disassembly and intrinsic design features, such as orientation and daylight views," he noted.

"The project was backed by a client whose standard specification for building works goes way beyond that of commercial development. The use of an emerging building contractor and the use of EPWP initiatives were important to the success of the project. We believe that our project should be considered a great achievement considering the use of these initiatives and the government's objective in taking a further step to ensuring the safety of our country. Further to this, the building reflects this objective with the intension to create awareness through detail that has been paid between all materials resulting in an overall well-proportioned form," concluded Fisher.

The building aims to improve on standard preconceived ideas of what we know as a call centre. In the past they have often been regarded as being introverted where, in this case, the project team has aimed to expose this function as the heart of the facility visually connected to all corners of the building and public realm that it serves.