Tokai Estate’s pergolas have been finished in time for the festive season. The steel beams have been painted and the greenery planted in the planters ready to grow along the stainless steel cables to the pergolas above. Take a look at the pergolas in the photo story below. For more information on our pergolas and trellises, request a quote and we will offer you technical sales.
Tensile Cables was commissioned by Hortcourture Landscape Architecture & Planning to supply cables and fittings for uniquely designed cables trellises at the new development in Observatory – Obscourt.
The Obscourt apartments offer an all round student accommodation including private gym and heated roof top swimming pool & braai facilities. It is ideally situated to service the needs of Groote Schuur Hospital, Mowbray Maternity Hospital, Red Cross Children’s Hospital, the private Vincent Pallotti Hospital, UCT medical school and the University of Cape Town.
Through the well thought out design eco-friendly sustainability and energy cost savings are assured by LED light fittings and motion sensors, water-saving sanitary ware and brassware. Piping hot water will come from a state-of-the-art central heat pump system (four times more energy-efficient than traditional hot water geysers).
Tensile Cables’s green wall trellises stretch the impressive full height of the Obscourt apartment block’s atrium wall as well as brighten up the boundary walls. Within 6 months, foliage will have started to grow along the cables and a geometric tapestry of greenery will begin to climb up the now bare wall.
Tensile Cables has supplied the cables for a large pergola in Tokai Estate’s outdoor courtyard.
Tokai Estate is a luxurious retirement village in the Western Cape. It boasts breathtaking views of Constantiaberg, Silvermine Nature Reserve and Table Mountain and is a first-class healthcare facility with top security, entertainment and cultural enrichment. It has five different property types, a coffee shop and restaurant, a gym with an indoor heated swimming pool, a library and more.
The project is still in its infancy. On completion, the steel pillars in the courtyard will have been painted, and creepers will be planted which will grow over the structure to create shade. The cables act as a trellis supporting the greenery, and a beautiful green roof will be the result.
Watch this space for an updated photo story of the finished installation.
Tensile Cables is often involved in project such as these. See Noordhoek Pergolas and Green Point Park Pergolas for other projects like this.
Last month we posted about the ingenuous roof structure over La Motte restaurant’s outdoor courtyard. This month we take a look inside at this playful and creative tea cup chandelier – tea cups and saucers suspended with cables.
Each piece of china is individually suspended from the circular base of LED lights by a stainless steel cable. The cables are almost invisible making as if the dinnerware is floating just below the ceiling reflecting the lights from above.
Cables are not only an aesthetically pleasing solution, but their strength allows for a safe installation and longevity of the sculpture.
Tensile Cables has supplied cables for other creative projects – suspended artwork, wine racks and dividing & decorative screens.
One of the balustrade systems that Tensile Cables offers is a swaged socket to swaged socket terminating into concrete.
This system is suitable when there is no access behind the post. It is specifically useful when there isn’t space for a post for the balustrade to terminate into, or aesthetically it is better for it to terminate into a wall. The threaded rod can terminate directly into brick or concrete.
This system can be quoted for, along with our other balustrade solutions, directly from our website. Visit the Products page and select the balustrade system of your choice. Select the size and quantity you require and add the solution to a quote request. Fill in your details and send, and we will revert with technical sales assistance and a comprehensive quote.
Tensile Cables’s sister company, Tension Structures was approached by Malherbe & Rust Architects when La Motte winery was looking for a canopy over their outside seating area at their restaurant. Having designed stunning wine estate structures with the architects before, a creative solution was found to compliment the perfect setting and century old oak trees.
Using tensile fabric and cables, it was engineered for an oak tree to support the canopy right in the middle of the roof structure. Tension Structures met the challenge and the old oak proved to be a worthy mast allowing the roof to sit beautifully within the setting at La Motte. The cables were supplied by Tensile Cables.
This structure appeared on the cover of the Western Cape April 2011 Edition of Property Magazine.
Due to be completed in October is a new and vast urban park at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. The aim of the park is to better connect the city with the sea through a series of pedestrian routes, including one alongside the canal.
It is named ‘Battery Park’ after the historical Amsterdam Battery around which it is built – one of the oldest structures in Cape Town. The urban park will include stone-filled gabian walls; as well as two circular walls which have been retained after they were uncovered in archaeological digs of the area prior to the start of construction.
“A key objective of the V&A Waterfront has always been to re-establish the connection between the city and the sea, which we have achieved with the pedestrian path that runs alongside the canal. Equally important, the ruins of the historic Amsterdam Battery have been retained in the park as a new heritage site,” said David Green, CEO of the V&A Waterfront.
Source: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/492/182438.html
Tensile Cables offers a range of rod systems which are ideal for roof trusses, structural supports, and bracing. The benefit of these systems lies in the galvanised steel rod that has higher stiffness than the equivalent size cable.
One of the system products offered is an adjustable toggle fork with a right hand thread on both ends made from galvanised steel. Adjustable toggle forks allow for ease of installation and tensioning on site.
Rod systems can be made up to specific lengths using a coupler nut design which joins rods together should the required length be longer than 6 metres. The rod sizes are available in M12, M16, M20, M24 & M30 allowing for a variety of different applications and strengths.
We offer technical assistance with the sizing, system design and application of rod systems.
Our rod systems are available with different end fork systems, including toggle ends, with either adjustable length or tensioning capability, as well as fixed length forks without length adjustment.
See our system drawings below, and please contact us for further information.
The 11th Annual Green Building Convention will be taking place from the 3 – 5 Oct 2018 at the Century City Convention Centre in Cape Town.
This year the convention theme is: THE RACE TO ZERO. There will be a focus on buildings that achieve net zero carbon emissions, as well as building with net-zero water, waste and ecological impact.
This year the convention will be run slightly differently. Now you can select the parts of the convention that interest you the most. You can customise your experience and pay according to what you attend.
Thanks to the Green Building Council of South Africa, since its launch in 2007, green building has been growing exponentially in South Africa, and it continues to do so. It took six years to certify the first 100 buildings and less than a year and a half to reach 200 in September 2016. Just over a year later, we now have more than 300 certified green buildings in South Africa.
Take a look at this year’s convention video below, and visit the GBCSA website for more details.
Also read more about the My Green Home project featured in our July 2018 newsletter, an initiative between the Green Building Council in collaboration with the C40 Cities.
Take a look at our trellises up on the wall at the new Gordon’s Bay Mall. They’re a perfect solution to make large blank walls in a shopping mall or business park more aesthetically pleasing. And they protect the walls as well.
Green walls are deterrents for graffiti artists, they shield walls from the elements and the improve the air quality of the building surrounds. They also act as a natural insulation solution keeping large concrete walls cooler in the Summer months, and wrapping them up in the cold Winter months, and have been proven to reduce heating and cooling costs in large scale buildings.
Our trellises were installed on blank white walls in the malls parking lots, and in the coming months will see green foliage scaling the walls.
