PROJECT INFORMATION
Year Completed: 2015
Project Team: Andrew Thomson and John Harvey
A new education building and existing building alterations at Rhodes University.
PROJECT
A sensitive insertion in the St Peter’s Campus heritage precinct, providing innovative learning spaces and creating positive useable courtyard spaces in the best tradition of the university.
The new building includes classrooms, a stepped auditorium, a computer teaching lab and offices, opening onto generous verandas and balconies that serve as an extension of the teaching spaces. They are all grouped around and form a courtyard with the adjacent existing building. The courtyard is used as an external teaching space, break-out and functions space.
Set back from the street, the new building does not obscure the adjacent 1904 William White Cooper heritage building, and allows for a vehicle ramp from the higher street level down to the courtyard level parking. The L-shaped footprint effectively creates a wind-protected and sunny courtyard together with the adjacent existing buildings. Linkages are created with the old buildings, bridging at upper level and connecting at the courtyard level to an upgraded courtyard and balcony addition on the far side of the old building.
The Rhodes University Aesthetics Committee and the dean of the faculty were actively involved in the evolution of the building and specified the requirements for roof shape and scale as well as the building materials.
Both the new building and the addition to the existing building had to be submitted to the Eastern Cape Provincial Heritage Resources Authority (ECPHRA) for approval.
An innovation in the auditorium is the incorporation of wide stepped platforms that accommodate group worktables or double rows in an examinations setting.
Existing student pedestrian routes were reinforced, wheelchair ramps introduced and new linkages created between old and new buildings and between the old and new courtyards.
