Contact Artefacts please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.	Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon		Nestle Distribution Centre and Offices New Germany, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal OSMOND LANGE ARCHITECTS and PLANNERS: Architect

Date: 1999 Client: Nestle Type: Distribution facility Status: Extant Street: Lanner Road   Click to view map Coordinates: 29°48'29.94" S 30°52'50.76" E Alt: 392m

OSMOND LANGE was commissioned to design this substantial Regional Distribution facility in 1999. The Project Architect was Paul WHITEHEAD, assisted by Leon KRUGER. The total floor area was in excess of 16 000 sqm. The facility was constructed on the site of the Falcon Ridge coal-fired Power Station, after it was decommissioned and the site re-engineered to serve as flat industrial land, a scarcity in the Durban Pinetown area. The site had to be tailored around the used asbestos recovered from the power station. The asbestos was encased in an underground concrete vault, some 20 meters underground. A public road was constructed over the vault, as it had to be accessible in perpetuity. The power station coal bunkers were not demolished, Floor slabs were cast over the coal bunkers, and the whole served as a base for the administration offices, workshops, and change rooms for the Distribution facility. The upper level of the coal bunkers were turned into an underground parking garage after the introduction of a new floor slab. Both buildings sit on a red facebrick plinth with white cladding above. The form of the Distribution Centre was dictated by the requirement for large areas of uninterrupted volumes for use with high bay racking. This space was therfore enclosed with a segmentally arched roof with a central ridge. A similar profile was adopted for the roof over the offices. [William MARTINSON, March 2010]