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Southampton
Life Center
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Location
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Harare (CBD) | |
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Designers
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Mwamuka Mercuri Associates | ||
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Date
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1994 | ||
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Original
Client
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Southampton Assuarance, Insurance Concernsiness} | ||
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Style
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Modern | ||
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Discussion
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Built
during a building boom in the early 1990s, this building is typifies extravagant
design that dominated building design during this period. The tower Built
on the same block of land as the world famous Meikles
Hotel and Eastgate office
building for insurance giants Southampton Assurance. The Eastgate complex
was completely detached from the other two buildings, which were intertwined
up to podium level. The project was conceived by local architects Mwamuka Mercuri Associates. It comprised of 18 floors of office space. Built on the site of the original Meikles Hotel (demolished in 1976), the site fronted two of Harare's busiest streets Jason Moyo Ave (north) and 2nd Street (west) and over looked the picturesque Africa Unity Square and local crafts markets across the former street. The building itself lines the 2nd street frontage, while the northern side forms an arched embrace around a central plaza of commercial malls and podium thus taking advantage of the glorious views of the park. The building uses an 'Africanesque' zigzag pattern, but then betrays this theme by its use of foreign cladding (Italian white and grey marble) juxtaposed against tinted blue glass. The whole building in its relief and stretched rectangular geometries speaks of verticality. At the most prominent corner of the site, this vertically is accentuated by a structural steel element zigzagging its way between podium and crown. The relevance of exposing these elements is lost, as the feature does not tie in with the reinforced concrete elements on the rest of the building. For all its flaws, the building that does well to retain the northern sun and filter it into the arcade and commercial plaza area through a triple level glazed lobby. This plaza has created can 'outdoor' communal environment that is not found in this area of the city. The pale colour scheme empathises well with the Meikles building and do not overbear on the park environment across the road. Ref. . |
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