CT's District Six gets green shade

Green is the new black. But is it fashionable enough right now for South Africa's property buyers?

To hear some speak, there's no avoiding it becoming adopted as the prevailing colour in every human endeavour. Particularly as far as buildings are concerned.

However, while the terrifying images and statistics popularised by Al Gore and his acolyte Leonardo di Caprio in their well-researched films create mutterings about an urgent need for change, green is still not the colour that South African property development marketers are convinced will turn the heads of local fashionistas.

For some developers, dipping a toe into the recycled grey water is about as far as they are prepared to risk their investment bucks, but local authorities might be getting more strident about measures that will go a lot further.

More significantly, private entrepreneurs are looking to their peers around the world for guidance on standards by which to grade projects – a system firmly in place in many first-world countries.

Bruce Kerswill is a Cape developer who has taken the initiative, and with the assistance of South African Property Owners Association (SAPOA) has set up the Green Building Council of South Africa. It is an independent non-profit body that is developing an objective measurement or rating system to assess the sustainability of projects, based on models in Australia, which is a leader in the field.

The rating system sets out to create categories of objectives and how to achieve them. Ratings against the scale of "green" achievement will follow. Eventually, the rating of a development could be used as a marketing tool in a more accepting market.

Kerswill, who is the managing director of the Spire Property Group, said when, as developer, his company looked for guidance on sustainable development measures, or even a materials and knowledge base, none could be found. So he took the initiative, gained the backing of SAPOA, started the ball rolling, and has since had a good response from developers keen to explore the processes and the possible benefits they may represent.

He reckons huge change will be seen in the next year or so, and the council is also planning to nudge the process with the introduction of courses in green building.

Some are already enthusiastically demonstrating their adoption of green methods, and Sustainable Systems Design, a Cape Town property design partnership, has embraced the concept in every way possible. Vernon Collis and partner, Anna Cowen, are responsible for a somewhat revolutionary single residential project in the context of the City Bowl.

While Collis already lives in a house that could be seen as a prototype for inner city green construction, his client's new home will have features that are distinctly uncommon.

On a plot of not more than 450sq m, the courtyard house with two separate living units (one for the owners, the other for their family visitors) are built atop large underground cisterns to collect rain and spring water from the mountain run-off. The previous buildings on the site have been almost entirely recycled into the new building, including using the rubble as an ingredient in the concrete (he calls it "rubblecrete") for the new building.

The rocks and soil from the excavation have been stored on a nearby site and some will be used and others sold. Uses will include driveway paving. "Every effort is made to reabsorb waste material," he says.

Former pathway slate tiles have been used, stacked horizontally to create a decorative wall, and thousands of bricks have been saved for re-use. Shuttering is being used extensively in the walling and the support material is all recycled wood. Props are gum poles from an alien replacement project.

In operation, the house will make use of recycled grey water for irrigation, passive cooling will be achieved by thick walls and carefully orientated fenestration. Solar water heating will be used.

On a larger scale, but employing more conventional building methods, a development will start to come out of the ground on the east side of the City - on the edge of District Six - in February next year. The development, called the Red Brick Building, will be an apartment block.

Project architect Jean Bernicchi says the development represents a strong move towards eco-friendly sustainable construction and operation, implementing solar pre-heated water systems and grey water recycling.

It will also employ plants as an interface between the street and the building, and the inner courtyard of the seven-storey building will be heavily planted and landscaped. Even a walkway from the nearby University of Technology will receive attention by way of landscaping and street furniture. Bernicchi says each elevation of the 83-apartment block responds to its orientation, with shuttering protecting windows where necessary and window shapes helping to control thermal effects.

Bernicchi says it would seem wise to start adopting the kinds of measures that are likely to be introduced as law in the near future, with authorities already paying close attention to green issues in the building industry. The effect on the market of stringent green measures that might require changes of mindset in property buyers, has, however, not been fully tested.

Images 1 & 2: The site in District Six in Cape Town where a green apartment block will be constructed.

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