Built Work · First commission
The Container Terminal Entrance at Walvis Bay Harbour was Booyens's first built project, produced while working with Bob Mould Architects in Namibia in 1997. The brief was functional — a gate complex handling the entrance and exit of container traffic, abnormal loads, and pedestrians — but the building that resulted from it is anything but ordinary.
The plan is derived from four intersecting ellipses, generating a perimeter wall that curves continuously around the entire structure. The overall footprint is roughly 43.5m long. A sweeping concrete roof follows the geometry of the ellipses, rising and falling over the entrance lanes, reception, deliveries, and the abnormal load exit — its profile determined entirely by the functional programme below it.
The section drawings show the ambition clearly: a 9 562mm rise across the main span, the concrete roof supported by a 2×50mm dual 316 stainless steel rod with long bends at each end, fixed to the ring beam without a single straight line in the entire structure. The precast concrete kerbstone and surface bed complete the civic character of the entrance.
Built at 28 years old, in a first job, in Namibia: the structure already contains everything that would define the next three decades of practice. Form derived from geometry and programme. Structure made visible. No concession to decoration.
