The Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) today announced the appointment of the architects for the expansion project, which will see the centre doubling in capacity over the next three years. An award-winning Cape Town trio of architects – Piet Bakker of Stauch Voster Architects, Anya van der Merwe of Van der Merwe Miszewski Architects and Mokena Makeka of Makeka Design Lab, were announced as the winning team amongst stiff local and international competition which included Henning Larsen Architects, Woods Baggot, GAPP Architects and others.
The winning team:
The shortlisted architectural teams
Rashid Toefy, CEO of the CTICC, said the expansion was set to create an iconic convention centre within the redeveloped Foreshore precinct, which would comprise 10 000 square metres of retail space, a hospital, hotel and an office tower. It would also contribute to the regeneration of Founder’s Garden by the Province, which will connect the Artscape precinct with the new, larger CTICC.
Mokena Makeka, of Makeka Design Lab said the architectural concept was entitled “6211”. This is a design interpretation of the globally unique biodiversity of the Cape Floristic Kingdom. “Using the DNA code of the 6210 plant species endemic to the Cape Floristic kingdom plus one dedicated to humanity, 6211 transforms the convention centre into an iconic living artwork that celebrates and raises awareness about humanity and nature for the passive enjoyment of local and global audiences,” Makeka said.
The expansion is the final catalyst in the regeneration of the Foreshore as the business hub of the central city, and will go some way to helping Cape Town absorb some of its additional hotel bed capacity. The Cape Town Foreshore has been described as an ‘unhappy compromise’ resulting in series of ‘wind-blown stretches of asphalt and concrete, filled with car parks and roaring traffic, inaccessible to pedestrians.*
The next step in the process is the appointment of Quantity Surveyors and Project Managers. Over the next three months, the CTICC will also start engaging with users, suppliers and the public for comment, and it is anticipated to have a spade in the ground in approximately one year. Construction is expected to take place between 2013 and 2015.
*Cape Town in the Twentieth Century, Vivian Bickford-Smith, Elizabeth van Heyningen and Nigel Worden, David Philip, 1999, page 152