‘We designed Liberty’s regional headquarters at Century City in Cape Town,’ says architect Robert Silke, partner at Louis Karol, ‘and that experience gave us a clear insight into the client’s ethos and vision.’ So it stands to reason that Liberty chose a, perhaps the, prime site in Umhlanga New Town – within walking distance of the Gateway Theatre of Shopping – and tasked Louis Karol Architects with designing a distinctive footprint. The elevated site fronts a park, an indigenous oasis in the heart of a financial centre. As Robert says with some amusement, ‘In traditional town planning this position would be where you’d put the City Hall. It demanded stateliness.’ Liberty fitted that bill, and although their Century City headquarters was their first building to conform to green standards, this new building takes their commitment to a green future to the highest level.

‘The economy has created two kinds of buildings,’ Robert explains. ‘There’s a developer’s building for the purposes of selling on to turn a profit, with little concern about long-term durability and sustainability. Then there’s an owner-occupier or institution that builds buildings to hold for generations, a totally different kind of building; it’s a very specialised field of architecture where design for durability means designing for craftsmanship. It requires a design life that lasts for generations. In effect, you design quite an old-fashioned building, a crafted building, and this is where environmental sustainability comes in.’

Liberty has built out of local Ficksburg sandstone. To the best of Robert’s knowledge, it’s the only building in Umhlanga to have done so. ‘Stone is as durable as it gets. It’s quite a capital investment, but then again, it’s about crafted durable structures that can last for generations. Liberty’s an institution with the maturity to know it’s not playing for short-term profit, but for the long term.’

Robert’s bemused by green perceptions: ‘Everybody’s thinking it’s a new technology, something that will save us from an environmental catastrophe. Building sustainable buildings is about relearning some of the old forgotten architectural skills. Architecture is by definition a field of sustainable design. In the old days, building design had to be about climatic response. Not only that, but the centuries preceding the 20th were poorer, and people understood you couldn’t afford to build buildings twice. They had to last hundreds, thousands of years. It’s that kind of durability that’s the key to sustainability in architecture.’

Elevated as it is, the Liberty building has an undoubted grandeur to it, the stone façade lending it an aura of stability, of longevity. Solid as a rock. Pretty much the way we like our insurers or banks to be. But the building has a soft side. There’s a substantial internal courtyard with water-hardy indigenous landscaping, and the view from the office windows always includes the colour, and concept of, green.