AR Awards for Emerging Architecture	Honourable mention	December 2007
./STUDIO 3 – INSTITUTE FOR EXPERIMENTAL ARCHITECTURE	School	Johannesburg, South Africa
Though the social inequities and physical deprivation that characterised the South African educational system during the apartheid era are gradually being addressed, immense challenges still lie ahead. Of the country’s 32 000 schools, half have no electricity, a third no water or access to telecommunications, and 80 per cent lack a library. Three quarters of buildings are in a substandard condition. Olifantsvlei pre-school forms part of the Moses Maren Mission, a complex of primary and secondary schools and children’s home on the edge of Johannesburg. Some 860 pupils of all ages are drawn from the surrounding townships, some coming from over 45km away. The pre-school project was developed under the auspices of two NGOs, a common practice nowadays, as the South African government needs assistance in tackling the colossal task of upgrading and extending its school building stock. Here, under the direction of Professor Volker Giencke, 32 students from Innsbruck University’s Institute for Experimental Architecture designed and built the pre-school, through a process of participation and engagement with the local community. Teaching staff were anxious to steer the new building away from the rigid and authoritarian hierarchical structures that characterised the previous regime and Giencke’s team of student architects has willingly obliged with a fluid and colourful collage of forms calculated to energise and inspire the very young pupils. Capable of accommodating 80 children of pre-school age, the school consists of two classrooms, a kitchen, lavatories and outdoor play area. United and sheltered by a strongly articulated roof structure, the various volumes are kinked, cranked and shuffled underneath to create different sorts of spaces, from the formal to the intimate. The overarching roof also defines shaded enclaves for outdoor lessons. Materials are, of necessity, economical – plywood, crinkly tin, an exposed steel frame – but their application has a thoughtful vigour, further enlivened by dashes of hot pink, yellow, cyan and green. Though playful, it is far from childish, echoing Giencke’s long-held philosophy of the need to create architecture that is organic, humane and participatory. The jury applauded the robustness of both the process and end result which dignifies and enriches the fundamental act of learning in a society still deeply divided. C. S. Architect ./studio 3 – Institute for Experimental Architecture, Innsbruck Project architects Astrid Dahmen, Walter Prenner Email astrid.dahmen@uibk.ac.at