Jaco Booyens Architect
  • Projects
    • Buffelsdrift Gold Medal Domus International Restoration Awards
    • Contemporary Mud House Buffelsdrift
    • Buffelsdrift Renovation
    • Buffelsdrift Staircase
    • Buffelsdrift Pumproom
    • Subsistance Farm Rysmierberg
    • Damaraland Clay Project
    • Big Tiny House Glencairn
    • Project Phoenix
    • Walvisbay Container Terminal Entrance
    • CAM Plywood Structure
    • Fort Haasbroek Swakopmund
    • Rammed Earth Desert House Swakopmund
    • Off the grid house Prieska
    • New BP Green Headquarters Cape Town
    • African trade mission in Rome
    • Vertical Village on the River Tyber
    • Staircase house du Plessis
    • Olijven Hof brick vault Montagu
    • Cape Town Offgrid Scyscraper
    • Furniture design
    • Thesis 1996 - Emergency center for earthquakes
  • Design Philosophy
  • About
  • Publications
  • Sketchbook
Project Phoenix

During 1999 I was approached by Ferdinand and Albrecht Holm 
( father and son) both architects to join them in a design competition 
for Holm Jordaan and Partners. During the 1990's the municipal head 
office in Pretoria South Africas capital was partly destroyed in a fire. 
A competition called Project Phoenix was launched for the 
redevelopment of the building complex. 

The competition was a 2 stage competition. After the first stage 
5 finalists was chosen to continue. Amongst others ourselves 
were chosen and strangely one of the other schemes entered 
by Burg Doherty Brian Architects who was the designers of the 
original building that burnt down and the South African Reserve 
Bank on the opposite city corner. 

Our teams design focused on passive climate control principals 
and urban interventions to create a city plain with an African 
character. 

Greenhouse-like atriums with large steel water tanks 
standing balanced and elevated on a single slim steel column
acted as heat sinks. These multi storey spaces acted as a buffer 
between external weather and internal spaces. Rainwater was 
harvested from the buildings to fill the tanks. Light shelves on the 
long north facades were used to both cast shadow on glass to 
control heat gain and reflect natural light to the ceilings deep into 
the buildings interior office spaces saving on electrical lighting 
demands. The width of the buildings was carefully considered
to enable this.

In early 2000 we were appointed as the winners of the competition 
and site architects to complete the project but after 14 years of 
futile legal battles with the municipality the scheme was replaced 
by another scheme of the municipalitys choice from a firm who 
did not compete in the competition. 



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  • Projects
    • Buffelsdrift Gold Medal Domus International Restoration Awards
    • Contemporary Mud House Buffelsdrift
    • Buffelsdrift Renovation
    • Buffelsdrift Staircase
    • Buffelsdrift Pumproom
    • Subsistance Farm Rysmierberg
    • Damaraland Clay Project
    • Big Tiny House Glencairn
    • Project Phoenix
    • Walvisbay Container Terminal Entrance
    • CAM Plywood Structure
    • Fort Haasbroek Swakopmund
    • Rammed Earth Desert House Swakopmund
    • Off the grid house Prieska
    • New BP Green Headquarters Cape Town
    • African trade mission in Rome
    • Vertical Village on the River Tyber
    • Staircase house du Plessis
    • Olijven Hof brick vault Montagu
    • Cape Town Offgrid Scyscraper
    • Furniture design
    • Thesis 1996 - Emergency center for earthquakes
  • Design Philosophy
  • About
  • Publications
  • Sketchbook