Woodstock Quarter

Project Details:

Value: R356.1m
Date: 2019
Client: Swish Property and Tuupo Holdings JV
Architect: Design Lab

Woodstock Quarter is a large mixed-use development in Victoria Street, Woodstock and one of Isipani Construction’s largest projects to date. At the peak of the construction phase, there were between 750 and 800 people working on the site. The flagship development involved the construction of 386 apartments, four levels of basement parking and a retail footprint of 7,300 m² for 171 storerooms — a total floor area of 55,000 m². A complex water reticulation system and a reverse-osmosis purification plant was added to make Woodstock Quarter entirely self-sufficient in terms of its water supply. The 6,800 m² Woodstock Quarter property is a consolidation of 13 erven. The site was handed over to Isipani in May 2017 once the initial excavation and lateral support work had been completed. Excavation work, done to a depth of 15 metres to accommodate four levels of basement parking, had exposed an underground spring capable of delivering up to 350,000 litres of water per day. As a result, managing the ground water remained a constant challenge during the first few months of the project until work finally reached platform level in December 2017. Woodstock’s narrow streets created many logistical challenges. People had to be appointed to manage crane time and drop-off points as the cranes were operating 12 hours a day demanding cement, sand and bricks, with two trucks negotiating very narrow streets to deliver the building material.

Space was also a problem, especially during the early phases of the development, until the last slab was cast, and site offices could be brought on site. Over time personnel came to know people living in the area, especially the children who often played cricket in the street near the construction site. The children initially caused problems on the site but were eventually taught to stay behind the barriers. As a compromise and to satisfy their curiosity site managers would periodically give the children supervised tours to show them some of the equipment on site.