“WHAT MAKES THE BUILDING MOST INTERESTING IS THE CONTEXT” It’s a testament to the subtle power of Team Architects’ design that pedestrians passing along Buitengracht Street in Cape Town, South Africa, only take passing notice of the four stories of piled concrete boxes, which are wedged neatly in between two colourful Georgian houses. But once you’ve stood in front of it and drunk in its crazy concrete symmetries, it’s all that you can see.
“What makes the building most interesting is the context,” says Philip Stiekema, founder and director of Team Architects. “The three materials—concrete, wood, steel—are entirely different, but really come together because they have the same DNA.” Covering the entire site footprint, it’s an almost miraculous achievement, an edifice that speaks to the past of the Bo Kaap…
