VODACOM HEADQUARTERS

The aim of this proposal was to renovate and connect two buildings to accommodate the relocation of Vodacom SA corporate headquarters. These structures differentiated both in age and function. One of them was an old house that, since the seventies, operated as an international fashion brand’s corporate headquarters. The other, more recent one, was a four level office building. This being said, the main challenge was merging these distinct and autonomous structures, in order to create a cohesive workplace that articulated both communications and functional connections between the administration offices and staff. In this context, the solution found was to create a glass bridge between the two structures, giving people the sensation of floating outside, while walking inside this semi-outdoor path.

This being said, the main challenge was merging these distinct and autonomous structures, in order to create a cohesive workplace that articulated both communications and functional connections between the administration offices and staff. In this context, the solution found was to create a glass bridge between the two structures, giving people the sensation of floating outside, while walking inside this semi-outdoor path.

DUE TO THE DIMENSION AND CHROMATIC CLARITY THAT CHARACTERIZE THESE SPACES, IT WAS CONSIDERED THAT THE NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL LIGHT SHOULD BE EMPHASIZED.

Remodeling the interior of these structures, each with different building systems (one based on stone structural walls, and the other on concrete supports), also presented as a challenge between letting resurface the "constructive personality" of each one internally, thus accentuating their differences, or rather to uniform both in a semiotic of current values, overweighing the constructive principles ​​of each without failing to identify certain constructive elements, regarding the age of each one. After examining the inherited spaces, soon it was realized the need to completely demolish the existing interior elements, in order to restructure the whole concept that was intended for the new program.

THIS TYPE OF SPACE CONTRIBUTES, EVEN IF IN A PASSIVE WAY, FOR ORGANIZATIONAL COHESION THE BUSINESS CORPORATION, FOR THE COMFORT AND WELL-BEING IT PROVIDES TO ITS USERS.

With the idea of ​​capturing this polychromatic light, generated by direct and reflected rays that the city emits at this part of the river, the space will benefit the work environment with a special luminosity that promotes a state of relaxation. The profusion of white light, configures each space through the contrast generated between the bright surfaces from direct beams, and the shades of gray in the half-light planes. The continuity that the white color provides to the space, with the diffusion of many of its contours caused by the presence of light, creates a spatial unit that allows the discovery of new forms of interior volume topology, always surprising.