infraTECTURE : transforming infrastructure into architecture, a services building in Pretoria CBD

Abstract

How does one appropriately design a selfsufficient building in the existing urban fabric without damaging historical urban centres? The role of architecture is to adapt, to not only serve and support people but, also to support its context and surrounding architectures. Thus a new typology needs to be created, by designing the architecture of ‘giving’. By looking at how resources travel between and through buildings, one could start to re-address the nature of services within architecture, starting with the outer workings of infrastructure. Through experimenting with the potential of creating space&place as an architectural expression via the re-imaginative design of infrastructure, the existing urban fabric can be served in a sustaining manner. The design is of a services building housing a parkade for conventional and electrical cars and bicycles which generates its own energy, harvests and stores water for itself and surrounds, process waste and sewage and cycle on site resources.