Extending sites of education: patterns for adaptable shared facilities to upgrade existing schools

Extending sites of education is an architectural design-research project that takes a typological approach to the upgrade of existing old-stock public schools in Cape Town. The focus is on parallel linear-block type schools built in neighbourhoods in the 1960s-80s. The defining decision was to extend existing schools, both spatially and programmatically, through a set of patterns that have relevance at multiple sites of similar condition. Rather than design a model, which may compound the problem of a-contextual school buildings, the project explores an architectural strategy that balances between the generic and the particular. Thus, although the design elements may be replicable, the architectural intervention helps to ground the school in its urban context. The new programme is intended to support and broaden the existing schools to enrich their role as places of learning and create opportunity for the campus to be shared with the community. Montagu's Gift Primary School in Grassy Park was selected as a case study to exemplify this approach.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Harrison, Juliet Anne

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Silverman, Melinda
• Low, Iain
• Isaacs, Fadly

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18172

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/18172