James Finnie

Cape STORM in a TEA CUP

jamesfinnie — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:55:25 +0000

Well, the proposed new Chapman’s Peak Toll Booth and Offices have caused a huge storm here in Hout Bay. A huge march to the site took place yesterday to show the communities concern. Personally I think the proposal is actually quite sensitive and sympathetic, the current set up is actually an embarrassment for such an attraction. Faded plastic cream toll booths siting so high up that you can barely reach up to pay your money and metal containers for offices. I don’t think many of the protesters work in such circumstances. Everyone is up in arms about building in a national park but almost all parks need support buildings in order to entice the public in and carry out the running of the park.

Things have gone a little skew when a two storey building with the top floor set back is called an office block. The cost of the buildings also needs to be put into perspective, the building and tolls cost R13m, but fair enough the overall cost is R53m, but come on, in the scope of things this is nothing when you consider other projects country wide. Maybe the protesters should be lobbying the government department which funds housing. Just my thoughts!

A little greener.

jamesfinnie — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:59:48 +0000

Just attended the Accredited Professional Course held by the Green Building Council South Africa GBCSA on their Green Star Office Tool. Talk about being reinvigorated again and getting an injection of enthusiasm. A well run and inspiring course, with good speakers, I am now ready to sit the exam and become an accredited professional. There is now greater determination for me to push and take on board the green star rating ethics on all my projects, even if only in part.
The green star rating tool allows you to rate your building and by doing this a star rating is achieved. This star rating allows you to boast that your project meets best practice or even better international standards. The course took place in the very luxurious Vineyard Hotel , which also helped.

Scrubs Up Well

jamesfinnie — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:16:56 +0000

Was given an ozzie architectural magazine from my Ozzie Auntie, packed full of quality work as usual, and then lurking at the back a classic house from DCM, revisited. They are a great Australian practice and was a constant source when we were students. the house is audacious and extravagant to say the least, but talk about a clean sheet of paper. Being a lover of concrete it was great for me to see it being used for a house in such a monumental way. Having said that in the same magazine I was reminded that concrete does not weather well and wondered if the “revisit” wasn’t a chance to give the house a wee scrub up, boy I’d like to know. See the green mould on the base of a brand new funky terrace. How a building weathers after 10 and then 20 years is for me an important ingredient which is almost completely overlooked when we drool over those freshly taken glossy pictures. Never the less cool house, looks like is ageing beautifully.

Mr Jobs

jamesfinnie — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:17:51 +0000

Genius.

We can all learn lots from SA’s first 5* green office building, I did.

jamesfinnie — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:24:58 +0000

off shutter concrete

A week or so ago I visited Aurecon’s recently completed Cape Town office and South Africa’s first 5 Star rated green building and it was fantastic and enlightening. Developed by Rabie it was a breath of fresh air but also a nice reality check to know it’s not a huge paradigm shift to construct a GBCSA rated green building. All the techniques which “we” discuss were incorporated into a quality building. For this architect it was a great injection boost and I loved the south facing restrained minimal feel. Located at a prime location at Century City and why not, I was actually impressed by the infrastructure which has been in place from the get go there, allowing developers and tenants to get a foot on the green ladder before they even start.

my_close your_street

jamesfinnie — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:13:02 +0000

my close

Rushed to get my entry in for the design indaba your_street competition only to find the deadline had been extended. Aghh. But what a great web site and great competition, had a lot of fun preparing and thinking about my idea. Thanks to @clearchange for comment. Fingers crossed.

shiny_happy_profiles

jamesfinnie — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:09:45 +0000

Another picture from a recent site visit. REM_ember where you saw it first.

eye_catching_abstract_minimalist

jamesfinnie — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 20:43:07 +0000

conc pockets

Here is a photograph taken during my latest site visit at Artscape where GAPP Architects / Urban Designers are carrying out a new roof extension and internal refurbishments. I love trying to capture interesting / abstract / minimalist images, but so often when viewed back at the office they don’t live up to how I perceived them on site. But I love this one, concrete, what do you think? Its my day-job.

Must_do_better.

jamesfinnie — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:16:29 +0000

b&w is how i feel

Can’t believe its almost been a month since my last post – its just not good enough. Only #3 people visited my site this last week, poor_stats_by_any_standard. Having tooth ache, losing my mojo and trying to design a pool with a R100 budget are just not good enough excuses.

#down_2 #the_last _3

jamesfinnie — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:39:09 +0000

"in the whole world"

Congrats to Cape Town for making it to the last 3 to be the 2014 host of the WORLD DESIGN CAPITAL.