Fredman Drive Competition | PARAGON GROUP : The Architecture Company - Architects & Interiors

 

Fredman Drive: Competition for Deloitte

This 42,000m² office building was designed to respond to the underutilised ground plane, a condition that afflicts many commercial buildings in Sandton. The intention was for the building to challenge traditional office typologies by including public space, rather than denying it.

In favour of the natural slope of the site, the street and sidewalk were conceived as an active design component in the building. The extension of the street and sidewalk on Fredman Drive, an ‘urban tongue’, projects almost two thirds into the site. A ‘forest’ designed below the building would be 40% uncovered and would allow for light and fresh air to enter the office plates on almost every level through a generous central courtyard. Furthermore, the soffit of the building would be reflective, to blur the distinction between the building, forest and urban context below.