Block 1: 12 June.


UNION CASTLE BUILDING No.1 (below)

My next task on the Union Castle Building was to indicate the new areas where the owners on the Building want to Lower the existing Finished Floor Level ( FFL ) to its Original FFL. Over the Years the existing FFL of the Union Castle Building was raised. The FFL is 950mm above the outside street level. The Tenants that currently have these FFL levels are ABSA and the Book Store.

If one looks at the Footprint plan of the Union Castle Building one will see that the building has now been divided up into five Tenants opposed to the previous four.

ABSA: indicated on the plan in an orange band will be unchanged at this point. There for I have hatched ABSA in a dark grey that looks black on the smaller image. This lessens the chances of confusion later on in terms of what is being demolished and changed to those staying the same.

EXPLORATORIUM: indicated on the plan in a green band is also to remain unchanged and has been hatched slimily to ABSA.

NEDBANK: Indicated on the plan by the blue band is to be extended. If you look at the plan you can see the internal walls such as brick and dry all are all indicated to be demolished. Nedbank has a FFL of 380mm making the difference in floor levels from ABSA to Nedbank 570mm. Now because Nedbank is extending into the old Book Store the existing FFL of the book store needs to be demolished to match that of the existing Nedbank making a constant FFL throughout Nedbank. The area to be FFL to be demolished is indicated by a light grey angled hatch. There is also a new Fire escape door that has been added to comply with the new fire regulations.

RETAIL STORE: looking at the plan you can find there is now a smaller section of the plan that is also having its FFL demolished and lowered on the top left. This is going too changed into a Retail Store. The reason for lowering this FFL is because currently this space is the Book Store and the outside ground level is at 100m, the internal FFL is at 950mm making the change in levels to great. Also the current owners of the building want the building to be wheel chair friendly so no stairs to be allowed.

The remaining parts of the Book Store will now become the new Standard Bank. Standard Bank will be keeping g the existing FFL of 950mm.

UNION CASTLE BUILDING No.2 (below)

Once the owners where happy with all the changes to the different tenants, the footprint of each tenant was send out to the corresponding banks so they could start their floor plans.

Once I had received the plans for each tenant I could make the last small changes to each tenant’s footprint before sending the plans to council.

TENANT 3: Nedbank had three small changes these where; moving the newly proposed fire escape door to the far left hand side to make it easier/faster for the workers to evacuated the building if a fire was to accrue. The total floor area was extending for Nedbank by demolishing the far left side wall that was to be a part of the new retail store. This gave Nedbank the space for the fire escape door and the large existing window. The last change was the adding in of the disabled toilet and regular toilet on the far left wall.

TENANT 4: The only changes to the Retail store was the proposal of replacing in of the previously existing single door that was blocked up when the FFL was raised to 950mm, indicated on the top elevation and the newly proposed disabled toilet on the far right wall.

TENANT 5: Standard Bank changed their stair case on the far left side to save space and to make the stair case into a fire escape exit, now also changing the far left hand side door into a fire escape door to comply with fire regulation. A proposal for a disabled toilet to be built in the top right hand side corner was asked by Standard Bank.

These where the only amendments to be done to the footprint of the Union Castle Building and once meeting with the civil engineer we concluded where four pilot holes had to be dug. These pilot holes are to be used to indicate specify certain aspects of the building. Two of the four pilot holes are to identify the thickness of the existing screed, this it to make sure that the existing creed can handle the new two ton ATM machines that will be placed in certain areas. The last two pilot holes are to see the depth of the existing foundation as if the foundation needs to be extended deeper.  

CS

Block 2: 11 June.


UNION CASTLE BUILDING No.1 (below)

 The latest project I have been asked to work on is the Union Castle Building located in the V&A Waterfront.
The Building has currently has four Tenants. Two of these Tenants are Banks. One is a Book store while the last of the tenants is the Exploratorium, located at the second floor of the building.

My task was to go to Union Castle Building and measure up the entire ground floor, as no drawings of the internal existing layout existed. Measuring up and plotting out the current floor plan of the building took two full days. Once all the dimensions where taken down, I had to draw up the building from scratch, starting with the grid or columns of the building as this gave me a starting point to now draw the internal layout of the existing building.

Green: All the areas that have a green line around them indicate common areas used by the public. The Exploratorium is also seen as a common area.

Orange: Indicates ABSA located on the bottom East side of the building.

Purple: Indicates the total floor area of the book store located on the West side of the building. The book store has the largest floor area out of the four Tenants. There is also a locked room that is inaccessible due to lost keys; this is indicated by the orange hatch area on the plan.

Blue: Indicated NEDBANK. NEDBANK is the smallest of all the tenants located on the North East side of the building.

Once the plan was drawn up I was asked to do multiple sections through the building to show parts of the building that aren’t easily identifiable by look at the existing plan.

The section are A, B, C, D and E.

UCB ELEVATIONS No.1 (below)

The elevation where next to be drawn, The V&A Waterfront where very pleased with the detailed elevation I had done. The Union Castle Building is over 60 years old and falls in to the Cape Town heritage department so any alteration will have to be accepted by them.

  

Block 1: 11 June

FRONT ENTRANCE No.1 (below)

This was a very simple task of extending the existing roof of the front entrance of the Blue Waters Project to cover the car entrance.

In this drawing shown you can see the photos showing the existing building and how the roof cover only extends to the start of the road by the car entrance.

Given this extension will allow for better security and for a more pleasing/ welcoming greeting.

POWER, WATER SUPPLY No.1 (below)

Here again we come back to the Site.

 I was asked to indicate the areas and positions of the new Water, Electricity and TV cables.

Blue: indicating the water supply that starts from the front entrance and travels along the road to three new points. Two of the water supplies lead to the Cavan Camp site. While the third branches off to the right to the new proposed pool area.

Red: Indicates the Electricity that starts from the front entrance as well, travailing along the road to the same indicated spots as the water points. This will give all the Caravans power to their caravans for light and cooking requirements. The red supply that branches off to the right is supply power to the pool pump.

Green: Indicates the TV cables that will supply all Cabins and Chalets with DSTV and other channels, this however does not include the camp site area.

 CS