Located between the Menlyn Maine Central Square retail centre, other office buildings such as the Spaces Building, GEMS building and Nedbank Menlyn, and the Trilogy collection residential building, and within walking distance of more than 10 amenities, Park Lane West is sited on a traffic circle on one of the precinct’s main pedestrian routes. With facilities that include co-working space and a ground-floor restaurant, the building has a distinguishing curved façade that responds to the shape of the site and focusses attention on the main pedestrian entrance.

Adaptable floor plates, which allow for churn and tenancies of various sizes, are organised around a central atrium. Balconies serve each tenancy and help to further articulate the building’s façade. The multi-volume atrium is crowned with a lightweight skylight that won the Association of Steel Tube and Pipe Manufacturers (ASTPM) Tubular category at the SAISC Awards. Another strong architectural element is the atrium’s singular cantilevered staircase that connects all floors internally and promotes user activity by enticing staff and visitors to use the stairs rather than the lifts, thus contributing to occupant wellbeing.

“This kind of human-centred design thinking can have major implications for how we design and build more sustainably in the future,” comments Zendré Compion, senior sustainable building consultant at Solid Green.

I believe that the rapid adaptation everyone has had to make in their daily lives due to the Covid-19 pandemic will inspire many more such simple insights, and small changes that lead to good impact – for people and our planet.

It’s also worth noting that five members of the professional team and four representatives from the contractor completed the GBCSA New Building online Accredited Professional course – so the project was able to contribute towards skills development as part of its creation process.

Both the incentive towards activity by using stairs and the upskilling of team members earned the project Green Star innovation credits, as did the fact that it is targeting more than one certification, plus the specification of aluminium frames with 75% recycled content, for use in exterior fenestration and internal shopfronts partitions.

Compion adds that most of the buildings in the Menlyn Maine precinct have only cold water supplied to their ablution facilities, which not only saves on electrical costs but also goes a long way to reducing material consumption in the form of additional geysers or hot water systems, pipes, valves and heat pumps, as well as long-term maintenance of these systems. She says:

The building was delivered as shell and core, with the tenant fit-outs to be executed on a different contract to integrated fit-outs. This ensures less construction waste throughout the building life span than a typical generic office fit-out.

The project has significantly reduced potable water use through rainwater collection and by installing waterless urinals as well as other water wise fixtures and fittings. Together with water wise plant selection, moisture sensors and drip irrigation, the demands on the irrigation system have also been reduced by at least 50%.

The building has a thermal energy storage system (TES) that uses a phase change material to store cooling energy to be used at off-peak times, thereby reducing the energy use of the HVAC systems. Fresh air is provided into the building at a rate of 66% above the SANS standard; and, to enable effective management of resources and early detection of any issues, energy uses of 100kVA or greater, and all major water uses, are sub-metered and controlled via an advanced BMS.

With user health and wellbeing at the forefront of industry concerns, together with operational cost efficiency, Park Lane West maintains a sector-leading standard for Menlyn Maine, both in terms of its architecture and green building features.

Project Team: