Block party in Jozi

WORDS Nechama Brodie

The Johannesburg skyline’s newest addition is an apartment block made of shipping containers balanced on an old silo building! The eye-popping architectural development in Newtown has been customised as affordable student housing. We spoke to the mastermind behind, MD of Citiq Property Services, Arthur Blake.

Johannesburg was once known as the “Manhattan of the veld” – a reference to the numerous Art Deco buildings that defined the city’s growing skyline in the 1920s and 1930s. Nearly a century later most of the original ziggurats have been demolished, or eclipsed by modern high-rises. However, there’s a hint of the old modern in the staggered summit of the new Mill Junction development in Newtown, where repurposed shipping containers have been converted into functional, eye-catching tiers of student accommodation, securely perched on the top of a cluster of old silos.

The innovative project was conceived, designed and managed by Arthur Blake, MD of Citiq Property Services. Arthur, who is a structural engineer, says his interest in shipping containers originated long before the Newtown project – he did his MBA dissertation on “the acceptability of container housing in SA”, and Citiq had already used such containers to create a multi-storey apartment building in Windsor, Randburg.

“It’s a very cost-effective way of construction,” Arthur says of the containers. “It’s modular, and because it’s modular it’s cost effective. We put four additional storeys onto the silos in just two days; in Windsor, we had the basic structure of a three-storey building up in two days.”

But the appeal goes beyond just value-for-cost. “As a designer, I think it’s a very nice addition to the building – this modern, modular structure on top of an existing structure. We rejuvenated, upcycled… all these new buzz words in green building,” he enthuses.

“If you go and look at Mill Junction, we created a green line around the building. It comes up the south face, stops on a red container on the south side then goes into a green line across the horizon descending into a jagged edge down the northern side. It’s a design feature of this greyish-brown structure, a green line with a red dot in it. Some sophistication to a hard industrial building.”

While the Windsor building was cladded internally and externally (the latter a requirement of Council that no building can be erected with visible steel – put in place to prevent shacks, Arthur explains), the containers on Mill Junction have been left exposed. “It became a very nice industrial feature in an industrial town,” says Arthur. 

Arthur comments on articles questioning his “mad philosophy of just dumping containers. That’s not how a designer sees things. For me, there is a solid block with windows, one after the other, like a block of flats – but held up by circular structures. If you look at it in the evening there are rising lines of light, holding up a solid block of light at the top. If you’re fortunate, you see things further down the line – we can see things in 3D.”

From a developer’s perspective, Arthur adds that if Citiq “had to create this in concrete or brick it would have cost us a fortune”, but that they didn’t just “plonk four rows of containers onto the silo. We looked at how it would add value to the building, to the development.”    

Each container, Arthur says, is “not a redundant item – we don’t buy containers that have been badly dented or that are structurally damaged,” but rather ones where the seals have been broken and it’s no longer cost-effective for the shipping companies to repair [the seals]. “We go and have a good inspection, and buy really good containers in a good condition,” he says, “and then take them up and insulate them, make them structurally sound in terms of fire and all the council safety requirements.”

The containers are built from weather-resistant COR-TEN steel, designed to prevent rust, and the exteriors have been painted with standard roof paint. “In some places we leave the signage, with the names of all the different shipping companies,” Arthur says, adding that such exposed features will be part of future Citiq container developments already underway in Johannesburg.

Once the container has been fitted and insulated, Arthur says “the inside is like your garage – you wouldn’t notice that it’s a container. Very often in my company I say let’s not talk of containers; it creates the wrong perception. Rather use the correct term: modular units. People ask ‘how can you live like that?’ But when they go up into the building, they ask: ‘where is the shipping container?’”

The units, which are offered as double (shared) or single room options, are fitted out with beds, cupboards and desks – also designed by Arthur’s team, and manufactured in China – and there are communal kitchens and student areas including lounges, study areas, libraries, gyms and game rooms. The development also provides free WiFi for residents. 

citiqproperty.co.za

Read our article about the Joburg orphanage built out of containers here.

We invited South African architects to conceptualise container architecture for our local context. See their solutions here.