Blog Entry 3 : Ponte Tower, Johannesburg’s tallest residential skyskraper

Ponte City Building was built in 1975 and has been Africa’s tallest residential building for 40 years standing 173m high – a true engineering feat. However, it is due to lose its status soon – the Leonardo building currently under construction in Sandton is planned to be taller at 223m and is due for completion in 2017.

Ponte Towers – tallest residential structure in Africa.

 

I decided to visit Ponte on a tour with Dlala Nje and learnt a lot about the history of the building. Dlala Nje is a non-profit company and profits from the tours are used to fund a creche on the ground floor of Ponte, as well as other programmes to benefit the community.

The 55-story building is cylindrical, with an open center allowing additional light into the apartments. The center space is known as “the core” and rises above an uneven rock floor.

When it was built, Ponte City was seen as an extremely desirable address for the affluent of Johannesburg due to its views over all of Johannesburg and its surroundings. It had over 400 apartments designed to house 3500 people. On the top floors were three-storey apartments. When Ponte opened, Hillbrow was designated a whites only area but people of all races inhabited the building and the government labelled it a “grey area” where whites and blacks could mix. However, Ponte became a “hijacked building” run by illegal landlords and the building the building which was meant to house 3500 people had over 10000 people living there. Government reacted by cutting off its power and removing policing from the area.

Even when apartheid came to an end in the early 1990’s, Ponte remained a dangerous building known for drugs and prostitution and crime and poverty.  The middle core of the building was filled with a massive pile of rubbish almost a quarter of the way up the skyskraper and the apartments were in disrepair. Ponte was also known as Suicide City because of the number of people who jumped off the building both on the inside and outside. At the time, there were potential plans to turn the building into a prison in the sky.

In 2001, there were plans to reclaim Ponte. Illegal immigrants were evacuated, Trafalgar Properties took over management of the building and began making numerous improvements. Then in 2007 Ponte changed ownership and a re-development project New Ponte was put in motion. The planned development would have contained 467 residential units, retail and leisure-time areas. Over the next few years, the Johannesburg Development Agency planned to invest about R900-million in the areas around Ponte City such as the Ellis Park Precinct project, as well as an upgrade of Hillbrow and Berea partly in preparation for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. However, banks did not provide the funding required to finish the revitalisation, the project was cancelled and ownership was given back to the original owners, the Kempston Group.

More recently an afrikaans woman named Mrs Beetje took over running the building, which is still owned by Kempston Group. The residents call her Gogo, Zulu for “grandmother” because of the way she runs the building. Mrs Beetje use to work in the office of former apartheid president PW Botha. Today, almost all of the apartments have been refurbished and the security is tight – to get into the building you have to have your fingerprint registered. Any residents late with rent quickly get denied access to the building and have their possessions put outside.

Of the current 3,500 residents, about 10 percent are white. Mrs Beetje apparently does not like having students as residents because they are unreliable payers. The views from the top apartments are spectacular and rentals are between R2000 per month for an ordinary one bedroom mid-floor apartment to R6000 for a top floor two bedroom apartment.

The building itself, meanwhile, earns a fair amount of money on the side. Vodacom pays R500,000 a month to put its sign on the roof, (The neon sign on top of the building is the largest sign in the southern hemisphere), and movie producers pay R100,000 a day to shoot in the core (One of the final shots of the 2009 film District 9 is of the tower).

People I spoke to agree that there is still work to be done and Ponte tower is unlikely ever to regain its status as South Africa’s most palatial skyscraper. But with its modern flats and tight security, it’s turned a corner. Currently Ponte tower is fully occupied and there’s actually a waiting list to move in.”

Munro Drive – A national heritage area

The second “engineering feat” I have explored in my project and this blog is NOT a building. It is a road – or actually – a pass that I travel almost every weekday morning on my way to and back from school, and have for almost ten years: Munro Drive.

Munro Drive is a short pass that connects Upper Houghton and Yeoville with Lower Houghton or Houghton Estate. The low, rocky ridge that separates downtown Johannesburg from the northern suburbs is called Linksfield Ridge and Munro Drive is one of three passes that were first built to give residents of a growing Johannesburg City, access to new places to live to the north. The other two passes are Stewarts Drive and Sylvia’s Pass.

The history of Munro Drive: Munro Drive was named after John Munro, a director of The Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Company (JCI) and was initially built from stacked stone in 1919. The Munro Drive pass has been declared a National Heritage Area. It is believed that the stone walls along Munro Drive were built by Italian Prisoners of War captured during the Second World War, although I cannot find any proof of this. Munro Drive is one of only a few passes in South Africa that is under 1km long. On 1^st February 1938, part of a retaining wall in Munro Drive collapsed and the road had to be rebuilt (theheritageportal.co.za).

Picture 1: An old postcard picture of Munro Drive

Picture 2 : Part of the wall collapses Source theheritageportal.co.za

My journey driving down Munro Drive: Since I have my learner’s license, I thought I would explain the pass by driving down it myself. My passenger kindly took photographs. Where Elm street intersects with St Patrick’s Road at the circle is the Southern Start of Munro Drive pass. The road starts at an altitude of 1768m and heads north as you drive down the pass. The first 130m is fairly flat till the intersection with St Pauls Road. From there it drops quickly down to a sharp left hand bend. On this corner there is a widening of the road where cars coming up Munro Drive can pull over to stop and look out over the view of Houghton and the golf course. This space is not suitable for descending traffic to stop at. The view is great, although it is disappointing that someone has sprayed graffiti on the walls here. The road then heads west for 40m then enters a full and very, VERY sharp 180 degree hairpin bend. You cannot go faster than 30 kph here or you will be in trouble.

Picture 3 : Graffiti on the wall at the lookout on Munro Drive

Picture 4 : The view from the lookout over Houghton

Picture 5 : An example of the stone clad walls along the pass

Picture 6 : Approaching the hairpin bend on Munro Drive

 Picture 7: Driving South down Munro Drive

Picture 8 : Driving through the hairpin bend at less than 30kph

After the hairpin bend, the gradient steepens out to 1:7 and descends at that gradient to the 500m (past halfway) point and then the slope levels out to a more gentle 1:3. The pass ends after 900m at a T-junction with Houghton Drive at an altitude of 1727m.

Driving up Munro Drive each morning trying to get to school on time is a problem because the cars form a long line through the whole pass and there is no way to pass anyone.

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The Gautrain: A Historical Engineering Landmark for Gauteng

2010 was one of the most exciting years in the history of South Africa and more specifically Gauteng. Not only was it the year the Soccer World Cup was held in South Africa, but it was also the year the Gautrain was opened – a state-of-the-art rapid rail network in Gauteng.

The Gautrain rail connection consists of two main links, one between Pretoria and Johannesburg and another between OR Tambo International Airport and Sandton.  Apart from the three anchor stations on these two links, seven other stations are linked by approximately 80 kilometres of rail along the route.

The Gautrain offers international standards of public transport with high levels of safety, reliability, predictability and comfort.  Travelling at maximum speeds of 160 to 180 kilometres per hour it reaches Pretoria from Johannesburg in less than 40 minutes.  The minimum frequency between Johannesburg and Pretoria is six trains per hour per direction and it operates approximately 18 hours per day. This public transport service includes a dedicated, exclusive bus services to transport passengers to and from stations.

How was the Gautrain built?

Franki Geotechnical Engineering Contractors were responsible for the innovative design solutions and efficient implementation of the Gautrain.

PART 1: Their first priority was to install the lateral support/perimeter piles. These comprised more than 540, 750-diameter straight-shafted auger piles ranging from 11m to 33m in depth, which formed the temporary perimeter wall of the excavation. More than 120 000m³ of sail was removed.

PART 2: The second part of the operation was to install a capping beam and balustrade wall joining all the piles to further knit the piles together, while at the same time acting as a safety barrier for the excavation.

PART 3: The third element of the lateral support system comprises anchors, gunite / shotcrete against the soil faces and rock bolts on the rock faces. Each pile was anchored by several hollow bar Titan or strand anchors of which there were almost 3000. The arches between the piles were supported with more than 10 500m² of 100mm-thick gunite/shotcrete, while at the south end of the excavation, where there was approximately 2 500m³ of rock, conventional rock bolts will be used.

 

 

 

 

 

Picture : Construction of the Gautrain

My test ride on the Gautrain

So, is it easier to take the Gautrain to the airport or to drive? I did not know the answer and decided to test this out. So on Sunday morning 22 May, I challenged my dad to race me to the airport; I would take the Gautrain and he would drive – at the speed limit – and we would see who got their first.

Pictures above: My journey on the Gautrain

I was really interested in the prospect, and I backed my chances of winning! We left home at 11h10 and dad dropped me off at the station at 11h18. The race was on.

I spent what felt like years of my life travelling down a few flights of escalators and then realised that I needed to upload my train card as it did not have enough money for the fare. The fare to OR Tambo international airport from Sandton was R142. There was only one person ahead of me at the counter and then I was off down another escalator, only to find that I had just missed the train which had left at 11h27. The next train was only 30 minutes later at 11h57! This was extremely disappointing and I felt as if I was doomed. I then checked the schedule on the wall which revealed that a train leaves every 10 minutes on weekdays before 11am but only every 30 minutes on a weekend.

I finally got onto the train and I had just sat down when dad phoned. He had arrived, parked and was at our designated meeting spot – the Kulula check-in counter. And I was only leaving. The entire journey was only 15 minutes, with the train stopping at Marlboro and Rhondesfield along the way before reaching our destination and then it took me a further 5 minutes to walk to the counter. If I had made the 11h27 train, which I could have if I had money preloaded onto the travel card, I would have arrived first.

R142 is rather a lot of money for a one way trip, but then you don’t need to pay for petrol for the trip, not for the cost of the parking (R145 for 8 – 16 hours). But, if you are a family of 5 like ours, it might just be too expensive to travel on the Gautrain.

Of course, our trip was on the weekend. If it had been a weekday, and early in the morning during peak hour traffic, it would have taken much longer to drive to the airport. The Gautrain would still have taken 15 minutes and, despite the cost, we would not miss the flight!

Picture above: Dad is really pleased he beat me by car!

Pictures below: Train tariff and Parking tariff posters.

 

Watch this space!

Hi I’m Mike Boyce, and i am going to be writing Blogs for my Jozi project on the great engineering feats of the city of Johannesburg. Watch this space and keep updated !

Places of engineering feats to be visited: Some of the places I will visit and explore will include; the Nelson Mandela Bridge, the FNB stadium, the Gautrain, Munro Drive, the new Standard Bank Building in Rosebank, the 3 main towers on the Johannesburg skyline : Ponte Tower, the Telkom Tower and the Sentech Tower.

How each visit will be covered : Each visit, will be documented as a separate entry into my blog covering my discoveries about the places visited. My information will include research (interesting facts and figures) about the places identified. This will include the history of the building/place and the relevance of the place to the city. My visit will include photos and information gathered.