Status
On Site
Area
2 475m2
Client
Stellenbosch University
Consultants
Edifice, BVI,
STAC, Gibb,
Transport Telematics
Africa,
ARQS, SMEC,
Safe Working Practice
Stellenbosch University - New Pavement Lab
This new building for the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Stellenbosch, which forms part of a campus renewal over the next eight years, is a space that operates as a laboratory, but with processes akin to a heavy-duty factory with a considered and detailed design approach. Both soft and hard, rough and refined.
The New Pavement Laboratory (NPL) is a new building for the University of Stellenbosch Engineering Department, specifically the Civil Engineering Faculty.
The building sits on the north east corner of the site which was formerly student parking. This side of the engineering campus not only has spectacular views of the Jonkershoek and Stellenbosch mountain ranges, but is also the side of the campus where most pedestrians from student housing enter the building complex and filter through to the rest of Stellenbosch campus.
It is hoped that this building will activate the previously dead ‘rear end’of the site whilst denoting it as a major gateway to the complex and broader pedestrian ground level thoroughfare.
The building is industrial in look,construction and finish. It is designed to be hard wearing, perfectly suited to its client requirements whilst maintaining an edge of refinement and detail which must always form part of a considered and thoughtful architectural intervention.
