A 28 Storey historic building with the addition of a penthouse on 29th floor and three basement parking levels is in the heart of Cape Town CBD. Situated close to Table Mountain and within walking distance of the V&A Waterfront makes it ideal for anyone planning to stay in Cape Town whether that be permanent or on a temporary basis. The building was predominantly used for offices until our client The Heriot purchased the building and converted floors 15-28 to residence, hotel and Air BNB and the penthouse was converted into an office. We were appointed for all the Electrical and Electronic designs works pertaining to the renovations project.
Most buildings over 60 years of age have some of their As-built documentation on paper which after all these years are affected by aging which makes it difficult to read the information. This makes it the most challenging part of any renovations / refurbishment project trying to discover existing building services and integrating with it where permissible. We spent countless investigating and documenting these services and how to safely tie into them.
The entrance / reception of any building can make tenants or visitors feel welcome or simply drive them away from a building, that’s why we spend a lot of time and effort upgrading the existing fluorescent lighting with new LED lighting. This not only had a significant saving on electricity usage but made the ground floor space brighter and more inviting. We added a couple of special LED downlights on a lower bulkhead as feature lighting to accentuate the wall planter proposed by the architect. All rooms, lobbies and passages were fitted with a mixture of LED light fittings such as downlights, linear strip lights and track lights which was strategically place not to exceed the prescribed watts per square metre as set out by the Green Building guideline principles. LED light fittings with high lumen output was chosen to improve the lighting efficiency throughout the entire building. The building has almost zero lighting pollution as there aren’t any external light fitting except for the two at the penthouse, however, to overcome this we made use downward facing lights with 180-degree cut-off optics.
As part of the energy and sustainability study for the project we replaced the conventional electro-mechanical meters with smart meters which was installed by an external company. The smart meters allowed for accurate electrical consumption monitoring of apartments, common areas and HVAC throughout the building.
-Maurice Awkes
