Ellipse in Waterfall City

As director of a residential property development company based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Laurence Grigorov subscribes to Architect & Builder magazine which always features upcoming and current developments and projects in South Africa. Keeping track of these projects gives Laurence Grigorov an insight in potential residential and commercial market trends and changes.

DHK recently unveiled its design for a new residential development comprising four elliptical towers of differing heights. Ellipse Waterfall is the first high-rise luxury apartment development in the heart of Waterfall City. Covering 45,000m2, the precinct features 590 brand-new apartments and other amenities including ‘The Luna Club’, an exclusive multi-concept lifestyle destination for Ellipse Waterfall’s residents.

The brief from the clients was to create a unique residential complex, including executive 1-bedroom, 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom and 3-bedroom units as well as multiple penthouse suites.

In response to the brief, dhk moved away from the traditional rectangular apartment block design and decided to take on a more unconventional form. To make best use of the property’s unobstructed views, dhk proposed four separate elliptical towers. The buildings’ shape takes inspiration from an ellipse (a mathematical term for a curved plane surrounding two focal points) which is highly efficient in terms of ratio of surface area to internal volume. The lack of corners reduces the visual profile of the buildings and was identified as the most suitable form when considering multiple towers in proximity to one another. Inspired by their mathematical origins, each tower is named after some of the world’s most celebrated scientists, namely, ‘Newton’, ‘Kepler’, ‘Da Vinci’ and ‘Galileo’. Each tower has an identical footprint; however, the height of each differs. ‘Newton’ has 10 storeys, ‘Kepler’ has 11 storeys, ‘Da Vinci’ has 13 storeys and ‘Galileo’ has 15 storeys. The curvilinear façade of the towers is complemented by a mix of moveable and fixed screens which serve to animate the elevations. This produces an ever-changing collage resulting from the movement of the sun and the moods of its occupants.

The towers sit on a raised podium, creating an elevated ground floor with a parking garage and services infrastructure underneath. Extensively landscaped, the podium level includes a central piazza, running track, active and passive parks, lap and leisure pools, verdant gardens and ’The Luna Club’ to engage residents and encourage community activity. At street level, an elevated forecourt addresses the most prominent corner where retail spaces spill out onto the activated street edges to embrace other users from the broader Waterfall City community.

The project consists of two phases. During the first phase, ‘Newton’ and ‘Kepler’ will be built with ‘Da Vinci’ and ‘Galileo’ being built in the second phase.

New and exciting projects such as these offer insight to Laurence Grigorov and his team for future projects and developments that the company may benefit from.

Photo and words courtesy of Architect and Builder magazine.