Jewel City in Johannesburg

As director at a residential property development company based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Laurence Grigorov has a keen interest in local and international architectural and development news and information, keeping abreast of the latest trends and designs in the these fields.

A new project which Laurence Grigorov is excited for has recently been unveiled in the CBD of Johannesburg. It is the R1.2bn redevelopment of the Jewel City precinct by Divercity Urban Property Fund and GASS Architecture Studios.

This massive urban redevelopment project on the outskirts of the Maboneng Precinct in Johannesburg’s eastern CBD will breathe new life into the previously walled-off former centre of the diamond and precious metals trade in Johannesburg. The complex consists of six city blocks of industrial buildings, some dating back to the 1930s. The entire area was closed off to the public in the mid-90s and has remained an isolated and forgotten node for decades. Jewel City involves the reinvention of this pre-existing industrial complex as an open, vibrant mixed-use precinct that will introduce a socially and economically more sustainable dimension and new diversity to early inner-city rejuvenation projects such as the Maboneng Precinct.

The developers see Jewel City as a catalytic project that will enhance the eastern CBD’s urban potential, introducing crucial facilities that include new affordable residential space, a school, healthcare and retail facilities such as pharmacies and a supermarket, a gym and other recreational facilities that help to sustain an inclusive, prosperous and wholesome urban social, economic and cultural life in the inner city. Jewel City has been envisioned as an opportunity to undo apartheid-era spatial divides and transform the inner city in a way that also addresses much needed access to resources and economic opportunities in the face of a dire need for housing.

The industrial heritage of the buildings will be honoured not just through the lightness of the architectural interventions to the façades and by exposing the expressive minimalism of their industrial materiality – off-shutter concrete, brickwork and steel – but also through the naming of each building, which includes refence to their former incarnations as a centre of the diamond and gold trade, but reframed as more inclusive and representative of South Africa’s broader history.

The quality of the public space and the broader architectural character of the precinct is designed not only to catalyse and support a greater diversity of people within the precinct, but also to invite and encourage further investment into the CBD. More broadly, the development opens up the potential for other key nodes of urban development such as Maboneng, the planned Absa Precinct and further developments along Fox Street to merge and form an integrated walkable city.

Sustained by a belief in the transformative potential of urban design and architecture to catalyse economic and social energy, dignity and prosperity, GASS Architecture Studios has re-envisioned this all-but-defunct industrial complex into a series of thoughtful interventions that breathe new life into Johannesburg’s CBD, while remaining respectful of its heritage.

Words and image courtesy of Architect & Builder magazine.