CAPE
TOWN
FILM
STUDIOS



CAPE TOWN FILM STUDIOS

This project serves as an oasis of shelter and greenery in the otherwise vast and open Cape Town Film Studios (CTFS) complex. This rest space—extending as a spine between four major studio warehouses—makes use of pergolas, retaining walls, and planted berms to create a series of seating nooks that are tucked away from the CTFS hive of activity. Given the intimidating scale of the studio warehouses and workshops, the client required an intervention that ameliorates the scale difference between a person and, in some instances, the 25m high building facades.

The context of the Cape Flats and the Kuils River wetland system required an understanding of the landscape conditions and climatic constraints of the site, with its exposure to strong seasonal winds being a primary informant of the intervention’s form and vegetation.

The intention of the space was to emulate the windblown dunes that would have naturally populated the Cape Flats. Conceptually we constructed a series of dunes and carved into them to inhabit them; these ideas were explored through a series of clay models constructed at various scales. The walls became the elements that hold back the dunes to make habitable spaces; the pools of water are an abstraction of the “kuils”that formed part of the bigger water system; and the pergolas help with scale transition whilst the trees grow.


YEAR
2010

LOCATION
Cape Flats, Cape Town

TEAM
TKLA

CLIENT
Cape Town Film Studios


























© TKLA