Seven new developments added to UCT infrastructure

SEVEN new buildings and developments will come on stream over the next three years to meet UCT’s infrastructural needs through to 2035.

Developments in the pipeline include a 500-bed residence, an education building, a neuroscience centre, the Graduate School of Business (GSB) Academic Conference Centre, a R73 million Africa Research Institute for Skin Health (ARISE) hair and skin research centre, a school of design thinking, and a reconfigured north bus stop near the sports centre.

These major campus developments are included in UCT’s master plan, which has been approved by the Department of Higher Education and Training.

The university’s capital planning and projects unit director and architect and urban planner Nigel Haupt said UCT’s physical footprint was bound by a council-ratified size and shape document, which considers limitations such as the university’s geographical position between mountain and sea. Accordingly, the maximum head count will be between 30 000 to 32 000 students.

The shape and size plan also aims for a 60/40 split between undergraduate and postgraduate students.

This means that UCT’s expansion must be within the corridor of the Main Road between the Faculty of Health Sciences in Observatory and the Old Zoo boundary above the M3.

The 500-bed Avenue Road residence will be for first-year students on middle campus. As a first-tier residence, it will include dining and other much-needed student facilities. Completion is planned for 2020/21. This is the last student housing facility that will be built on a property that UCT owns.

“Our residences have lifts to provide access for all, heat pumps to reduce our carbon footprint, grey water systems infrastructure, and this residence includes a 550-seater dining hall for first years. It will also serve other residences in the vicinity that do not have dining facilities,” Haupt said.

Student accommodation has been a growing challenge for the university, especially as the size and shape plan aims to have one-third of UCT’s eventual 32 000 students in student housing.

“We have around 6 700 beds now. Our aim is to provide 10 600 beds.”

The recent mushrooming of private student apartment blocks along Main Road between Rondebosch and Mowbray has resulted in an oversupply of student accommodation on the market. But these facilities could be too expensive for the average student, said Haupt.

UCT’s rental for student accommodation was lower than the market rate, he added.

The Neuroscience Centre in the J-block building at Groote Schuur Hospital is due for completion in September. The GSB Academic Conference Centre is due for completion in May.

The new School of Education planned for a site adjacent to the School of Dance on lower campus should be operational by the end of 2020.

The R100m Hasso Plattner-funded D-School, near Woolsack, on middle campus. Because the land is leased from UCT, a percentage of the building will be devoted to accommodating other student facilities.

The six-storey R73m ARISE building, funded by the Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta), will be a training centre for skin health, cosmetic and occupational product skin safety testing, planned for the health sciences campus. This facility will also be shared with other UCT units.

The north bus stop on upper campus will be moved to a site opposite the sports centre to alleviate congestion and busyness in this precinct.