Architects’ titanium school commended
The unique design of a local titanium learning centre receives much acclaim
DESCRIBED as a ‘rib cage of a bird deriving characteristic elements of flight, motion and lightness’ by journal Steel Construction is the new Mposa school designed by Richards Bay architects Greg Hendricks and Willie van den Heever.
The unique Grantleigh Titanium Learning Centre was recently awarded with an Architectural Category Commendation Certificate from the South African Institute of Steel Construction, congratulating the whole building team on work well done.
Adjoining Grantleigh College, the facility is a development initiative funded by Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) to host top achieving students from surrounding rural communities.
And while receiving top-notch education in science and technology, students are also given the opportunity to integrate with the adjacent private school’s counterparts.
In the centre’s main building are two science laboratories, a 144-seat auditorium, teacher’s office and a boardroom, which forms a courtyard enclosure with subsidiary maths and ablution blocks.
A central courtyard poses as the outdoor learning area where dissections and lectures are conducted alfresco.
It also boasts an outside amphitheatre and a maths classroom block.
‘The building is perceived differently as one navigates around it with an experience that is always relational from various points as it cannot be experienced as an absolute whole,’ said the Steel Construction editorial.
Also impressed by the design was Constructional Engineering Association’s Louis Breckenridge, who complimented the school as an ‘excellent architectural concept enhanced by good engineering and very careful detailing’.
‘The concept is outstanding, the workmanship excellent and the attention to the details of this complicated structure has been very well done,’ said Breckenridge.
