8 Merchant Place

8 Merchant Place 8MP is the latest addition in an almost 30 year history of intervention on the Merchant Place site, situated at the corner of Rivonia Road and Fredman Drive in Sandton, Johannesburg. Boogertman +Partners changed the Sandton skyline at the end of the 1990s when 1 Merchant Place, an 18 storey tower, was completed. We have been engaged since then with Rand Merchant Bank and Eris Property group as the campus has grown and expanded over the subsequent years. The new building is a relatively modest architectural insertion size wise, but will be experientially significant in the day to day activities of staff and visitors. At its core it is a building that ensures that the surrounding campus is utilised to its maximum efficiency by pulling non-core functions out of these and rearranging them into one space. The new structure will house a staff wellness centre, a restaurant and core retail facilities on the ground floor. A staff gym on the first floor. A staff crèche on the second floor and an open entertainment and exercise level on the roof of the building. This complex brief is “poured” into the piazza that sits between the RMB buildings and the neighbouring Investec head office. The building expresses itself as a series of undulating horizontal planes that hover over the piazza space, with clear glazing between to ensure maximum light penetration into the new spaces. A distinctively reactive architectural language has been developed that sinuously fills the space while using the existing structural grid from the parking basement below. The new structure purposefully contrasts the architecture that is there, its curvatious shape opening new spatial opportunities between itself and the existing built form. On ground floor, the building splits into two portions, one half housing the bulk of the retail and restaurant, the other the wellness centre. The space between these two portions become a covered outside eating area for the restaurant and allows access through into the campus from the Investec building, thus tying the two corporates together. Entry to the floors above is through one access-controlled lobby to the lifts and stair cores. On first floor, and part of second floor, the gym is located. On the lower level the free weights area occupies a large open volume with views on all sides and connects to the changerooms and ablutions. On the upper level are studios that open onto an external deck. Second floor houses the new creche. This facility opens onto a secure open-air playground that is only accessible directly from the creche. Babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers will all be accommodated, the space has its own small kitchen and laundry area. Third floor accommodates an outdoor entertainment area that is supported by an events kitchen, allowing functions of various sizes. There is also an outdoor running track that connects to the gym via the fire stairs for staff wanting to exercise in the fresh air. The building uses a minimal palette of external finishes to emphasise its dynamic shape. The clear glazing is framed above and below by a triangular section, pearlescent white aluminium “sill” detail that traces each of the curvilinear slab edges. This is offset by Tyrolean plaster on the minimal solid panels. The new building is an extension of the existing RMB ThinkSpace precinct, a publicly accessible art exhibition space that inhabits the spaces between the buildings at Merchant Place. The underside of 8MP slabs are thus conceptualised as a 6th elevation and will receive an artwork that will be printed onto and integrated into the external ceiling panels, pulling the art precinct into the building.