Shoprite, Centurion Mall
Retail

Shoprite, Centurion Mall

Centurion
A retail facade where the insulation board, the crack-control mesh, the false-joint grid and the finished colour are one continuous skin — no cladding rail, no coping, no separate paint system.
SystemTerraco EIFS — EPS insulation board, Styrobond DP basecoat, Terramesh glass-fibre mesh, Terracoat textured topcoat
Board fixingAdhesive plus about 5 mechanical dowels per m². Both are required — the adhesive bonds and levels, the dowels are the wind-load path.
Reinforcing meshTerramesh Standard: alkali-resistant glass fibre, 160 g/m², 1500 N/50 mm tensile both ways, minimum 100 mm lap. Crack and impact control — it is not structural.
Adhesion (pull-off)>2.0 N/mm²
Water behaviourVapour-permeable, Sd <0.10 m; low liquid-water uptake, W24 <0.15 kg/m².h^0.5
Guarantee12-year installer guarantee on the full EIFS system

Shoprite at Centurion Mall is a new store elevation built onto a working shopping centre. The photographs show scaffold standing over an occupied parking deck, other tenants trading behind the working face, and the new parapet rising off an existing profiled metal roof. The facade had to be built from the outside, in lifts, on a site that never closed.

Technopol supplied and applied a Terraco EIFS render facade: EPS insulation board bonded and mechanically dowelled to the structure, a Styrobond DP basecoat with Terramesh alkali-resistant glass-fibre mesh fully embedded in it while wet, a primer, and a Terracoat textured topcoat. The topcoat is the finish and the weather skin in one — vapour-permeable at Sd <0.10 m, low liquid-water uptake at W24 <0.15 kg/m².h^0.5, bonded at >2.0 N/mm². It carries no thermal duty; every bit of R-value in this wall sits in the board behind it.

What the architect asked the system to do here was hold a large, flat, sharply-arrised charcoal box against the sky and read as panelised stone. It is not panelised. The grid you see on the finished elevation is a reveal cut into the insulation board and carried through the basecoat and the topcoat, so the joint lines are continuous render, not a gasket, not a shadow gap between two dry-fixed sheets. The pre-topcoat photographs show the same grid already set out and skimmed. Nothing gets stuck on afterwards.

The junctions are where an EIFS facade is won or lost, and the record covers them. The parapet is capped in the same coating, wrapped over the top and down the inside face — there is no metal coping and therefore no fixing line to leak through. The render turns the underside of the projecting box and runs past the steel columns, so the soffit is the same skin as the wall. Three colours — charcoal, green, tan — meet on one continuous system with no change of build-up.

Finished work was checked on site, including moisture readings taken against the cured topcoat. The full Terraco EIFS system carries a 12-year installer guarantee.

On this building
Product
Terraco Textured Coatings
On site

The photographs

Ours, taken on the job. Not renders.

The same coating turns the soffit of the projecting box and runs past the steel columns. Wall and soffit are one skin, so there is no board edge, no trim and no joint to seal where the two meet.PHOTO
The same coating turns the soffit of the projecting box and runs past the steel columns. Wall and soffit are one skin, so there is no board edge, no trim and no joint to seal where the two meet.
Before the topcoat: the reveal grid is already cut into the board field and skimmed, and the white patches are filled fixings and joints. The finished 'panel' lines are made here, in the insulation, not applied later.PHOTO
Before the topcoat: the reveal grid is already cut into the board field and skimmed, and the white patches are filled fixings and joints. The finished 'panel' lines are made here, in the insulation, not applied later.
Basecoat being floated onto the board on the parapet lift. This is the coat the Terramesh is embedded into while it is still wet — the crack-control layer, applied off the same scaffold, over a live centre.PHOTO
Basecoat being floated onto the board on the parapet lift. This is the coat the Terramesh is embedded into while it is still wet — the crack-control layer, applied off the same scaffold, over a live centre.
The parapet cap. The render is carried over the top of the parapet and down the far face — no metal coping, therefore no coping fixings penetrating the weather skin at the most exposed line on the building.PHOTO
The parapet cap. The render is carried over the top of the parapet and down the far face — no metal coping, therefore no coping fixings penetrating the weather skin at the most exposed line on the building.
Charcoal, green and tan meeting on one continuous system. The colour change is a topcoat change only; the build-up behind all three is identical.PHOTO
Charcoal, green and tan meeting on one continuous system. The colour change is a topcoat change only; the build-up behind all three is identical.
Close on the cured topcoat in raking light: the grain of the texture, and the false joint struck sharp and straight across a large flat field. A moisture reading being taken on finished work.PHOTO
Close on the cured topcoat in raking light: the grain of the texture, and the false joint struck sharp and straight across a large flat field. A moisture reading being taken on finished work.

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