Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Taking social issues into account pays off
UCT architect student wins regional finals of Corobrik Architectural Student of the Year competition
THE SOCIAL complexities of a developing country cannot be ignored when blending all the ingredients that go towards achieving world class architectural design that has a profound sense of place and is relevant to its environment.
Consequently, innovation is an essential attribute for modern architects as they employ their technical skills to create aesthetically appealing and functional built structures that will endure into the future, according to Dirk Meyer, managing director of Corobrik, speaking before the 29th Corobrik Architectural Student of the Year Awards function.
The competition has been held annually for almost 30 years to encourage and reward innovation and technical excellence among the country’s most promising architectural students. It starts with regional competitions at eight major SA universities and culminates in a national award ceremony for the overall winner in May.
“We expect new and distinctive ideas from the students, in addition to a high standard of technical skills, creative flair, a good grasp of sustainability issues and a clear understanding of the role built structures are expected to fulfil in the environment,” said Corobrik’s Christie van Niekerk as he presented prizes to the regional winners.
Matthew Mills was the regional winner with a prize of R8 000, Sophie Zimmermann won second prize of R6 500, and Clint Abrahams won third prize of R4 500 as well as R4 500 for the best use of clay masonry.
The eight regional winners automatically qualify to compete for the R50 000 national prize.
Mills won the regional finals for his entry entitled Transurbance: a walk about the river, in which he addresses social, economic and environmental issues in the industrial landscape. He believes that cities are designed to be technically enhanced but consist of functionally isolated systems that bear no relevance to the living environment. Paarden Eiland exemplifies a disconnected and disjointed environment, and his project focuses on a portion of Salt River, which runs through Paarden Eiland and reaches its mouth surrounded by industrial factories. His solution consists of a long linear path that moves over and under transport barriers such as highways and railway lines, utilising the often dead residual spaces to provide a pedestrian connection to the shore.
The continuous path creates moments in which observation, interaction, play and discovery can take place. It forms a weir in the river, bringing floating debris to a recycling centre, where it can be re-purposed into usable components that restore the river.
The architecture attempts to merge landscape, building and infrastructure into one, creating a design that can rehabilitate the environment. Mills believes the design will be able to shift its users’ understanding of the environment, to one where technology and nature can exist harmoniously and symbiotically.
Zimmermann’s Embodied Relevance project explores the potential of existing concrete frame structures, focusing on the Christiaan Barnard Hospital in the city centre. The concept design allows the building to be repurposed while retain- ing most of the embodied energy of an otherwise underutilised building.
Abrahams’ entry entitled High Streets: Constructing the public realm in low income areas, researched what makes a functioning high- street and how architects and urban designers could retrofit this idea to lower income areas.
Abrahams’ interest in high streets comes from growing up in Macassar, an apartheid planned township where there is no high street. After living in Observatory for the past seven years he was intrigued by the different energy emanating from the adjacent high-streets in Observatory.
He sited his thesis in Delft, a low income area 25km from Cape Town’s city centre, due to the street energy he believes is reminiscent of areas such as Observatory. However, the energies in Delft are brought about by the informal activities and not institutional use. The dissertation design explores how institutional buildings can also aid positive street making conditions in the same way as informal use does.
Clay brick is incorporated into the thesis as Abrahams believes the building trade – particularly brick masonry – supplements the livelihoods of many households in low income areas. These trades are often practised outside to build up wealthier areas. He believes this is reminiscent of how apartheid- planned towns remain subservient to wealthier towns. Masonry work is then practised in an ad hoc manner and is not representative of the creativity and skills of local labour.
Abrahams believes these skills that are practised elsewhere should be brought home.
“Using clay brick in a creative manner challenges the mundane use of clay brick of traditional institutional buildings in these areas. Brick is used as enclosure, screening, ground cover as well as craft in the design and pays homage to the informal way it is used in the area,” says Abrahams.
Van Niekerk said clay brick masonry brings many benefits to a building project including low maintenance, durability, long-term life performance and energy efficiency, reducing the heating and cooling costs of buildings, along with providing a healthy and comfortable living environment.
He said that another major advantage of clay brick is its capacity for recycling and reuse, for instance during the rejuvenation of the 90-year-old Lion Match factory in Durban, an Amafa heritage site, where a combination of bricks from the demolished sections were used along with carefully selected new Corobrik bricks to seamlessly blend the old and new buildings.
Replacement of old bricks which are no longer manufactured is also a specialised requirement which Corobrik is called upon to fulfil. In the refurbishment of the 167-yearold Government House in Pietermaritzburg for use as Unisa’s regional campus, Corobrik created special dies to manufacture bricks to match the handmade salmon pink bricks typical of the early 20th Century.
“Clay brick’s versatility and aesthetic qualities make it ideal to enhance and harmonise with any environment for ultra-modern projects as well as the sensitive renovations of landmark period buildings,” he said.