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Restoration projects are of great value for all cities in the world, from many points of view. By their nature they must recognize and understand the value of old buildings, both in terms of their design and making, and in terms of their social and cultural value. In terms of sustainability, it is important to […]

Rallim, as qualified by the statement on its website, is: “An innovative and unique private modern learning environment that challenges the everyday school.” Charged with designing the physical setting for this environment, it follows that the architects’ task lay in defying the conventions of traditional school design. The resultant design met this challenge, not by […]

Situated on a farm in Namibia a veranda house is created using a wall with a folded cantilever roof creating shaded spaces from which to take in uninterrupted views of the savannah grass veld landscape. Raised from the soil the wall organizes the building into private and public spaces. Sheltered under the roof are cellular […]

The book provides a valuable archive of photographs taken of some of Roelof Uytenbogaardt’s most famous projects, all taken some 25 years ago. It also provides, perhaps more valuably, the author’s reflections of the works. The writings that accompany the photographs locate the work in time and place, providing reflections on the meaningfulness of the […]

The New Green Building for the Western Cape Department of Transport and Public Works, consolidates numerous administrative functions into one building on the Karl Bremner Hospital Campus in Belville. It takes as its form two regular, solid blocks, linked by a volume which houses the shared activities and circulation elements. The blocks respond in size […]

Good restoration is time consuming and laborious work. It requires painstaking research, high levels of discernment and careful action to negotiate the line between excessively overt expression of the new, and nondescript replication of the old. In their work on the Cape Town City Hall, the core task that the architects were charged with, was […]

Ilze concludes her book with this sentence: “This approach meant that the archive needed to be simultaneously assembled and “unstitched” in an imaginative way, allowing me to construct an argument about the important connection between architectural space, coloniality, and being human”. This is exactly what this book does so eloquently. It is a must read […]

How do we create spaces of equity in health facilities when its typology and legislation reveal social inequalities? Where the architectural innovation is subjugated by space norms, workflows and budgetary constraints, how do we design the same quality of space for surgeons and cleaners? These were the design challenges the architects faced when designing additions […]

Cheré Botha is a government school for children on the autism spectrum and those with intellectual disabilities. The design of the school keeps the children safe and gives them the opportunity to learn in an environment which is contained and low on external stimuli. In plan the classrooms are tightly knit in two wings around […]

Inspiring Kids for Life! This is the motto of the Zip Zap Circus which is a social circus founded in Cape Town in 1992, by the Esteve family to inspire young people and help build a new culture of peaceful co-existence in South Africa. The building of the Zip Zap Circus Academy, which is located […]

A glass prism, sleek in its minimalist purity can be glimpsed amongst the leafy roofscape of Kloof Nek Road. Provocatively austere, it is rendered more interesting by the layered depth that results from the inverted timber roof that is visible within it. The cube, like the lensed structure of a contemporary camera obscura, cues a […]

Towards the top of one of the hills surrounding the valley, we approached the house on a newly created road leading to it. The approach was marked by silent emptiness, icy wet winds, with only the sound of the howling wind around our tightly secured raincoat hoods. Out of, and in between the indigenous fynbos, […]

Situated on a steeply sloped site the building overlooks the Langebaan Lagoon. Here the architect, working with an incredible natural setting while dealing with scheme design controls and regulations has created an idyllic and quaint holiday home. Two slender courtyards are created to the north allowing light into the living spaces and providing easy access […]

The spatial question for this project was: how to fit more classrooms into an historic school precinct with a clear and particular double-storey historic form, while keeping the central courtyard and views to the mountain and allowing the existing classrooms to function during construction. This answer is brilliant in its simplicity. This addition shows how […]

The skilfully compiled book is really a contribution to the body of architectural books coming out of the African Continent. This is an internationally relevant publication for both the architect and the public. It’s introduction – What is industrial heritage? Clearly sets the parameter for the book. The editor is astute in putting forward an […]