Immigration Centre

A place to meet

Project: Multi-use building
Type: Academic project
Location: Braamfontein, Johannesburg
Year: 2018

The immigration centre tower: a stack of volumes wrapped in a gold perforated screen above an open ground floor

A planted walkway inside the perforated screen

The brief

A response to xenophobia: an inner-city centre where locals and migrants trade, swap skills and find first housing. Three months of skills exchange for locals, three months of transition for new arrivals, on a continuous cycle.

Academic project, Franklin Ndhlovu.

3 monthsskills exchange
3 monthstransition

Programme, floor by floor

RoofRooftop
Level 8Residential floor
Level 7Residential communal floor
Level 4Home Affairs
Level 3Skills transfer
Level 2Arts and crafts markets
Level 1Clothing markets
GroundPublic arrival, street edge
BasementParking

Street and atrium

A tall public atrium with planted bridges behind a diagonal steel structure and a perforated screen — The public atrium.

Street view of the centre’s open, covered ground floor beneath the screened upper levels — At street level.

Structure and skin

Exploded axonometric of the tower with its screens and facade pulled away — Exploded view.

North–south section through the tower showing markets, atrium, stairs and housing above basement parking — North–south section.

East elevation of the tower with its tapering screened base — East elevation.

Sketch to model

Three hand-drawn sections above three physical study models of the tower — Conceptual spatial resolution and structural morphology.