Propark 2: Corporate Office
Propark 2, a 400m² workplace designed as a simple keystone, which comprehends its immediate context, is sited within the suburban Propark office setting in Polokwane. Propark office precinct is a landscape of low scaled office buildings set around a communal access street and parking. The building was constructed on a restrictive site. Notwithstanding space limitations, the building adds an exciting closure of the streetscape of the complex and provides a pleasant working environment for two accounting practices. Composed of shades of light colours and glass, the building reflects harmony and provides a fresh scheme to the complex. The clients requested a plain modern building with uncompromising attention to detail, juxtaposition of materials, the ingredient of fun and exhilaration. The result was received with enthusiastic approval. The physical approach to the building is defined as a transparent interruption to the total mass. The entrance is further enhanced and celebrated by an element of timber, which introduces a contrast in colour and texture.
A garden wall, designed as part of the mass and signage, is positioned towards the entry point to the property and forms part of the entrance transition. It creates a fundamental relationship between the building and the surroundings, that is, the landscape and other buildings in the immediate context. All four faces are treated individually, as each one addresses a distinctive subject. The street face, otherwise treated as backyard space on surrounding buildings, creates a transition from the residential component and marks the beginning of the office park. The face overlooking the office park is designed to embrace the sum total of the buildings within the complex, creating the missing link, a connection much needed to complete the puzzle. Two towers rise from the front face of the building, they serve as roof supports as well as a strong visual detail, which in the eye, ties the building to the ground. The approach face is further detailed with three lengthened concrete columns. Each column ends with double steel columns, which emphasizes a strong definition of the floor level above. Internally, the spaces are arranged to permit visual relations from one side of the building all the way through to the other This is achieved by means of aluminium and glass walls where enclosed spaces are necessary and an open plan arrangement.