Local Brewery
Cape Town
2021
Local Brewery
2021
Typology
Built
Heritage
Hospitality
Interiors
Programme
Mixed Use
City
Cape Town
Country
South Africa
Status
Completed
Awards
Merit Award
CIFA
Everybody has a LOCAL
This project is an adaptive re-use of a run-down light industrial building, in Woodstock, Cape Town. Built in the 1930s, it was not deemed heritage worthy, but has since been re-graded as 3C. It served variously as a vehicle repair workshop and a dead-filing facility for hire purchase agreements for furniture. We were initially approached to renovate the building and make such internal works to enable it to be used as a brewer and taproom and a flexible co-working space on the upper levels. The brief was then expanded to include the interiors fitout, the bespoke furniture, and ultimately to co-ordinate the complex service provisions for the brewing equipment and its energy infrastructure.
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The clients wanted something unique and honest and were clear from the beginning that the building should be sandblasted back to its concrete frame and raw brick infill internally. Taking this as a starting point, we decided that anything which went into the building should be as honest as possible. The decision was to spend the budget not on expensive materials but on inventive making and creative problem solving. It was important that the most expensive element, the brewing machinery should be the star of the show, that the tap room should occupy the long wall of windows, that the backyard become a proper beer garden and that the atmosphere should be convivial, and not macho. The inserted elements are layered from the hard and sharp to the soft and subtle, incorporating colour, upholstery and plants.
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On the other hand, once work had commenced, it became clear that security was an enormous issue, with the new windows broken weekly by bored kids, and the contractor’s tools targeted by burglars entering across the rooftops of neighbouring buildings. This concern led to two architectural inventions- the galvanised steel unclimbable origami walls, and the razor wire climbing frame for creepers. A late discovery was that the cooling plant, when it eventually arrived from Wuhan, well towards the end of the contract, was considerably larger than what had been signed off on. Rather than being mounted on the walls of the side-space. it was placed above the heating plant in a steel and timber structure which is oblique in both elevation and cross section in order to accommodate itself to the already constructed security enclosure. The last external element designed was for the louvres which allow the air to flow but keep out the driving rain.
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In short, the project celebrates what possible in a city like Cape Town, full of insoluble problems and creative makers and clients. It is very carefully planned (Utilitas) , very soundly built (Firmitas) , but its real motive is to bring pleasure to those who work there and those for whom it has become their LOCAL.
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