- This office building is located in Midrand, Johannesburg and is surrounded by light industrial and warehousing.
- The client Firmenich (Pty) Ltd is a Swiss based flavour & fragrance manufacturer with offices around the world.
- The project site has been occupied by Firmenich (Pty) Ltd since 1997.
- The existing site’s landscaping is an exotic garden with exotic kikuyu lawn and indigenous trees.
- No trees were removed in the process of the new landscape construction, only the invasive lawn was removed to provide space for the new planting.
Sustainable building features include:
- For this specific project the submission’s target was Net Positive Ecology – Level 2 (Operational Ecology) which is achieved when new implemented landscaping increases the ecological value by +2 as per the Green Star SA – Office v1.1 change in Ecology Calculator. Due to an implemented and regenerated locally indigenous landscape of approximately 15% of the site this target was achieved in round one.
- The vision of the project was to ethically source the highest number of plant species that were locally indigenous to the endemic vegetation type of the site. Using a reference habitat approach and a vegetation composition ratio methodology plant diversity was closely matched to this vegetation type in order to regenerate a representation of what the local, native landscape could have been like before the area was developed. The site’s locally indigenous vegetation type is called Egoli Granite Grassland and is a listed threatened ecosystem in South Africa, with a current threat status of Critically Endangered. The target for conservation is 24% with only 3% currently being conserved. More than two thirds of the landscape has already undergone transformation due to urbanization and cultivation. This project therefore has the opportunity to function as an important education platform for this endangered landscape using ex-situ conservation methods
- This vision led to a project that planted over 4000 individual plants, comprising of almost 140 different species in a 1500 m2 area. This is arguably one of the highest measured diversity per m2 that a new locally indigenous grassland landscape has achieved in South Africa, from a brownfield predevelopment condition. In line with the client’s company purpose, a sensory pathway was designed through the new landscape with signage highlighting important plants of scent, flavour and medicinal properties described to a chemical level
Project Team:
OWNER: Firmenich (Pty) Ltd
ACCREDITED PROFESSIONAL: Marc Sherratt,
Sustainability Architects (MSSA)
ACCREDITED PROFESSIONAL: Marc Sherratt,
Sustainability Architects (MSSA)
LANDSCAPE DESIGNER: Rosemary Sherratt
MAIN CONTRACTOR: Marc Sherratt,
Sustainability Architects (MSSA)
MAIN CONTRACTOR: Marc Sherratt,
Sustainability Architects (MSSA)
PROJECT MANAGER: Marc Sherratt, Sustainability Architects (MSSA)
GRASSLAND EXPERT: Ivan van der Walt
GRASSLAND EXPERT: Ivan van der Walt
LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT COMPANY: Marc Sherratt, Sustainability Architects (MSSA)
ECOLOGIST: Ecology International
ECOLOGIST: Ecology International
