Creative output submission
Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool | Art Campus
SAIA Merit award 2018
Creative output submission
Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool Art Campus
SAIA Merit award 2018
Creative output submission
Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool Art Campus
SAIA Merit award 2018
Overview
The complex was commissioned by Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool in 2014 to accommodate over 240 learners who are taught music theory and various instruments. The allocated site is situated at the back of the school on a small, ‘leftover’ triangular portion of land between the existing school hall and the Gautrain and PRASA rail tracks which run along the school’s south eastern boundary.
The challenges of the site included the noise from the railway, as well as the unconventional triangular shape which ultimately led to an intricately connected design with urban corridors and courtyards creating intimate outdoor classrooms where students gather between music lessons and classes. These corridors connect practice rooms, a small concert hall and classrooms. Special care was taken to design around existing trees to establish a sense of atmosphere, while using a contemporary architectural language to expand the facilities of a 100-year old school. A coherent sense of place is created by separating the different functions into an ensemble of three buildings, respectively dedicated to learning, practice and performance.
Creative research submissions
2020
As part of the submission by Pieter Mathews in collaboration with Dr. Hendrik Auret from the Department of Architecture of the University of Free State
Creative research submissions
2020
As part of the submission by Pieter Mathews in collaboration with Dr. Hendrik Auret from the Department of Architecture of the University of Free State
Overview
The complex was commissioned by Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool in 2014 to accommodate over 240 learners who are taught music theory and various instruments. The allocated site is situated at the back of the school on a small, ‘leftover’ triangular portion of land between the existing school hall and the Gautrain and PRASA rail tracks which run along the school’s south eastern boundary.
The challenges of the site included the noise from the railway, as well as the unconventional triangular shape which ultimately led to an intricately connected design with urban corridors and courtyards creating intimate outdoor classrooms where students gather between music lessons and classes. These corridors connect practice rooms, a small concert hall and classrooms. Special care was taken to design around existing trees to establish a sense of atmosphere, while using a contemporary architectural language to expand the facilities of a 100-year old school. A coherent sense of place is created by separating the different functions into an ensemble of three buildings, respectively dedicated to learning, practice and performance.
Academic Framework: Poetry and pragmatism in architecture
Pragmatic considerations, such as acoustics, site constraints and existing architectural traditions, may often dominate an architectural response. The American architect and theorist, Michael Graves proposed a theoretical framework for connecting poetry with pragmatism. His essay A Case for Figurative Architecture (1982) explores the relationship between architecture and language. He relates the elements of architecture with those of language, in the creation of poetry. Language can be serviceable and conventional, or it can be poetic thanks to metaphor. Likewise, a building may unite pragmatic requirements – functional, structural and tectonic – with poetic three-dimensional expressions of the myths and rituals of society (Graves 1982:87). Ultimately, Graves advocated that a building should be technically resolved while incorporating an equal and complementary expression, be that ritualistic, symbolic or poetic (Graves 1982:89). In the case of the Art Campus, pragmatic considerations have been extended poetically, through the incorporation of metaphor and imagery related to music.
The Art Campus as Figurative Architecture
In the architecture of the Art Campus “design elements complement functional properties but provide a creative interpretation of notions of rhythm, repetition, pause and layering that are present in musical notation” (Peres 2016:32). The Art Campus is approached from the north, and partly obscured by the existing school hall. The gateway to the complex is a newly created courtyard with circular paving detail. Central to the courtyard is a sculpture of four abstract trumpets titled “Kwartet” – an Afrikaans reference to the four-piece musical ensemble. The circular paving that surround this piece, expresses the sense of sound waves, resonating from the sculpture.
The courtyard is flanked by the existing hall and classrooms to either side, with the entrance to a new 160-seat concert facility with specialist acoustic treatment and recording booth. The main entrance to the concert hall and classrooms is articulated with a concrete peristyle, supported by rhythmically placed round steel columns. The columns are pragmatic, yet poetically reminiscent of a melody or thematic motif accompanying the user to the entrance of the Arts Campus. The columns are read against a backdrop wall of soldier course masonry which recalls a choir, welcoming visitors and music students. The peristyle continues past the concert facility connecting to a pair of smaller classrooms used for listening and aural education.
The peristyle leads to a passage between the concert facility and classrooms. The passage curves around the side of the concert hall towards a slender two-storey building that houses the practice rooms. The practice room building stretches along the back of the new classrooms, but does not run parallel to it, rather it extends at an angle, creating another, more intimate courtyard which is flanked by the existing visual arts class on one side. The practice room building fulfils a functional role, acoustically shielding the centre from the noise of the railway tracks. In this courtyard, Acacia trees, complemented by brick benches create a peaceful, quiet and shaded exterior classroom where learners can do homework, wait for their lessons or socialize.
Intangible and historic elements of the school are celebrated with a laser cut steel screen placed on the landing of the main staircase. This screen is a visual representation of the school’s first anthem in enlarged Braille, a poetic embodiment of music, words and history, here patterned on a useful element.
The building responds to the school’s existing Edwardian architecture by using traditional red face brick and corrugated steel sheeting, but interprets the “qualities of the old into a new contemporary aesthetic” (Peres 2016:32). On a pragmatic level the centre responds to the constraints of the site, technical specifications and a small budget that required a fair amount of design innovation (Peres 2016:31). By using local materials such as sheet metal and brick, funds were available for high quality acoustic infrastructure and multipurpose communal spaces.
Contribution to Knowledge
The Norwegian architectural theorist and historian, Christian Norberg-Schulz proposed that Graves’s approach could reinvigorate the figurative development of modern architecture because it offered a way of reinterpreting typical responses in a manner that had “absorbed the teaching of Modern Art” (Norberg-Schulz 1985). The figurative approach need not be nostalgic, but could lead to the creation of architectural forms which are simultaneously revelatory and recognisable. In the Art Campus “pragmatic concerns merge artfully with poetic interpretations, to produce memorable spaces that hold a great deal of meaning” (Peres 2016:35). As a creative fusion of the poetic and pragmatic, the new Art Campus harmonises with the existing school ensemble in revelatory, yet recognisable ways. Peres (2016:35) asserts that “there is a comfort that derives from the construction of this project; i.e. that within a fast-changing and increasingly homogenised world, buildings can still resonate deeply with their users in pleasurable and generous ways to become meaningful architecture in their everyday lives”.
Public Profile
The AHS Art Campus was awarded a SAIA (South African Institute of Architects) National Merit Award in May 2018 and a PIA (Pretoria Institute for Architects) Regional Award for the best educational architecture in September 2017. It was published in the annual Digest of South African Architecture, local newspapers and on various online publication platforms. A peer reviewed article by Dr Edna Peres was published in the Journal of the South African Institute of Architects (Architecture SA) in 2016. The complex was featured on national radio station, SABC RSG’s weekly cultural programme.
Public profile
Awards
Bibliography
Project Publications
Anon., 2016. Affies kry unieke musieksentrum. Beeld, 17 February, p. 7.
Kotze, P., Award for best educational building: Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool Art Campus. SAIA 2018, p. 56.
Kruger, J., 2016. Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool Art Campus. Digest of South African Architecture, Volume 21, pp. 56-57.
Peres, E., 2016. Composing place – a new music centre for Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool. ARCH SA, May June, Issue 79, pp. 26-35.
RSG Kuns, 2020. [Radio programme] SABC.
Smit, J., 2017. Award for educational architecture: Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool Art Campus. PIA 2017 Citations, p. 6.
Works cited
Graves, M. 1982. A case for figurative architecture. In: Nesbitt, K (ed.). 1996. Theorizing a new agenda for architecture: an anthology of architectural theory 1965-1995. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, pp. 86-90.
Norberg-Schulz, C. 1985. Video of a lecture delivered on 12 July 1985 in San Francisco entitled On the way to a figurative architecture. SCI-Arc Media Archive: Southern California Institute of Architecture [online]. Available from: <http://sma.sciarc.edu/video/christian-norberg-schulz/> [Accessed on 13/02/2013].