ELPHICK PROOME ARCHITECTURE: Architectural Visionary’s Ambition Knows No Bounds

Committed to architectural excellence since its establishment in 1989, EPA has been in the business of creating exciting buildings, environments and spaces with functionality at their heart ever since. The result of a longstanding partnership between Founding Directors George Elphick and Nick Proome, talks to Enterprise Africa about the formation of the business and the roots of its success today.

“Fundamentally, I suppose, one of the major drivers was the distinct wish to no longer work for anyone else,” Elphick laughs. “We saw the opportunity for individual development and growth, on a joint basis, which initially gave rise to a practice which turns 33 this year. It was a recognition that there was opportunities at the time for young architects, and I have always maintained that if you don’t take a risk, there is never a story to tell.

“There was fairly extensive risk in having to survive a couple of years building up a practice that people would trust and employ, but since our first award of a small industrial project in Durban we have grown into a large and renowned practice within the South African architectural professional context. We have also achieved this quickly in a relatively small city like Durban and the reduced scope for work it offers.”

EXPANDED SCOPE

A more than three-decade long legacy now sees EPA comprise a trio of dynamic and capable architectural practices, created to deliver a complete and comprehensive range of design services in the African continent and beyond. “We have gone from a very small entity to an appreciable practice which has offered a huge amount to the African architectural and development world,” Elphick esteems, with EPA’s contribution now permanently etched in the African landscape.

Reflecting on the last 12 months since Enterprise Africa last profiled the business, one central feature, notes Elphick – alongside the emergence from Covid – has been significant growth in the business opportunities emanating from outside of South Africa, as the country itself witnesses a major shrinkage.

“Our endeavour has been to strengthen our involvement in projects outside of the country,” Elphick counters, “especially in Kenya and in Mauritius, where we have a really healthy body of work. We are turning our attention to projects in West Africa, in the likes of the Gambia and Ghana, and we are thus very driven to develop our presence in these particular areas. We have a wide network to draw on and Africa remains very much a growth area for us.”

Among EPA’s keynote undertakings has been a fascinating, pioneering new project in Kenya for an international group of companies named Tatu City, a 5000-acre Special Economic Zone located 16km north of Nairobi in the Ruiru Municipality area of Kiambu County. “After a decade or so of planning, a new city has now been developed constituting the amalgamation of a number of coffee farms just outside Nairobi,” Elphick reveals.

“It is being hailed as a new ‘satellite’ city, an entirely greenfield site incorporating housing, schools, industry, retail and now offices, the very first of which we have been tasked with creating right in the city centre,” he informs us. “At the moment this is literally on agricultural land, a site spanning nearly 30,000m² comprising two office buildings and potentially an art gallery. It is the scheme heralding the start of the city development which will ultimately be a sizeable component of this satellite city.”

The incredible project is Kenya’s first operational Special Economic Zone, providing reduced corporate taxes, zero-rated VAT and import duty exemptions among other benefits, and will accommodate more than 250,000 residents and tens of thousands of day visitors. Behind Tatu City’s design is a desire to shift urban development in Kenya from the familiar single node model to a decentralised urban environment, decongesting the City of Nairobi and forging a new way of living and thinking for all Kenyans in a unique live, work and play environment.

EPA’s extensive African network has brought about more rarely-granted and unmissable openings, Elphick says. “Angola has also been an important base in terms of the possibilities that we have been driving throughout the last seven years, despite being a notoriously difficult country in which to operate. We have recently completed the first phase of a commercial project in Talatona, which borders the capital of Luanda, consisting of two head offices – one originally for a Moroccan company, and the other for Standard Bank. A second phase will entail the addition of a hotel and a further office building, making this quite a substantial undertaking.

“This is another country that displays significant growth opportunity, in what it must be said is a challenging environment, by comparison to somewhere like Kenya. Overcoming the language barrier and getting to grips with the cultural understanding of these countries is a constantly intriguing endeavour, from all perspectives, and that includes the culture of architecture and development that exists in those places.”

OCEANS PROGRESS

Mauritius is home to the International arm of Elphick Proome Architecture, which has paved the way for innovative, bespoke projects in fifteen African countries that have been facilitated in collaboration with locally based architects, and all of EPA’s work taking place outside of South Africa, or the SACD, is channelled through it. The architect is among a handful of prestigious companies whose Mauritian offices have been mandated to provide professional services for the mixed-use Precinct development, set to become Grand Baie’s most prestigious office address and due for completion before the end of 2022.

Closer to home, EPA has also been, for some time, among the key players involved in the construction of an R3.1 billion, 231,000m² mixed-use community in Umhlanga named Oceans, comprising three towers and representing the largest private sector investment in development history in KwaZulu-Natal.

“This is a project which has taken the best part of a decade to facilitate,” Elphick says. “Umhlanga is a satellite beach town slightly north of where we are in Durban, a premier resort in the whole Southern African context. It enjoys a significant population of professionals which has given the area much opportunity to have enjoyed the growth it has seen over the last 25 years.

“There was a large portion of land in the centre of Umhlanga which was ripe for development,” Elphick continues of the project’s earliest days. “Our client had a clear vision of bringing together a series of land parcels in order to assemble the largest mixed-use development in South Africa. That comprises a retail centre which anchors, as a podium, two future residential towers consisting of 460 elegantly-designed apartments with sea views, and a new Radisson Blu Hotel which is about to be completed and come online.

“It is a very substantial project which effectively spans the heart of the town, and as such this is a truly landmark development in Durban, and of course particularly in the town of Umhlanga whose very face it will change.”

Elphick is unequivocal is his estimation of the sustainability that EPA will derive from this much bigger, more varied footprint, and the further growth it will reap for this celebrated firm. “We are highly confident and bullish – and hopeful – about our business opportunities and our abilities to translate these into finished entities for our investors and our corporate clients throughout Africa and beyond,” is his assured coding statement. “Our view is very much focussed on ensuring long-term business stability and growth out of the South African condition.

“In the commercial space, our aim is to complete on an annual basis three or more sizeable projects. We would also like to pursue the hospitality aspect of our business and aim to finish two new hotels within the same period, all while continuing to move through Africa and further as we have been since 1997, forging many new relationships and exploring numerous and varied prospects along the way.”