140 West, Alice Lane 3 win big for Paragon at SAPOA Awards 2018
06 July 2018

Architecture and interior architecture company Paragon scooped two major awards in the Commercial Office Development category at the SAPOA Property Development Awards for Innovative Excellence, held on 21 June at the International Convention Centre in Durban.

Hosted by the South African Property Owners’ Association (SAPOA), the awards is the most prestigious programme of its kind within the South African commercial real-estate industry, aimed at defining excellence in the property industry. The awards provide public recognition, as well as setting a benchmark, for top-quality design and functionality. Outstanding contributions from world-class owners, developers, and built environment professionals are showcased at the annual event.

The overall winner in the Commercial Office Development category was 140 West Street, while Alice Lane 3 received a commendation. Both are flagship projects in the redevelopment of the central business district in Sandton, with Paragon playing a major role in iconic projects as such as Sasol Place and the Discovery Campus building, among others.

A new commercial development by Zenprop, 140 West Street comprises 27 000 m² of P-grade office space in two linked towers on a lush landscaped podium, namely a ten-storey North Tower, a 14-storey South Tower, and eight parking levels. The project has received a four Green Star rating from the Green Building Council of South Africa.

“We could not be prouder of this building, or more grateful for this award,” Paragon Project Architect Kay Hausler comments. “We wanted to come up with something different and new.” Describing it as a structurally-complex project, Hausler adds that the building is both elegant and timeless.

Alice Lane 3 is an office building on the corner of Alice Lane and Fifth Street in Sandton, forming part of the R1-billion Alice Lane mixed-use development, which includes easy access to the Sandton Gautrain station, as well as various malls, hotels and offices. It was designed around an office anchor tenant, including showrooms and retail elements on the ground floor, which will interact with the piazza. Paragon designed all four buildings that enclose the piazza.

“Working with generated site-line analyses and sun studies, the conceptual design chiselled away at the sculptural forms to generate refined massing, and bring sunlight into the public space, essentially using sunlight to chisel form,” Paragon Founding Director Anthony Orelowitz comments.

Although functional aesthetic appeal is a pivotal requirement for the awards, it embraces a holistic approach that evaluates various designs, innovation, and efficiency elements, such as social transformation, overall impact, environmentally-sustainable design, design industry and community perception, and interiors that ensure the local commercial real estate sector is on par with international standards, SAPOA Property Development Awards for Innovative Excellence Chairperson Pieter Engelbrecht concludes.

Credits to Gregg Cocking of Africanism.