Status
Work in progress
Area
5 500m2
Client
University of Cape Town
Consultants
Fluid Projects, RLB, Pentad,
Welby-Solomon,
WSP Group,
De Villiers & Moore,
TK-LA, PJ Carew, Ifindo, SRL SA
HPI School of Design Thinking
The proposed design will locate the d-school as a moment full of rich experience and possibility where students can have a unique experience not offered anywhere else at the university.
KMH won an invited competition to design the new d-school building on Middle Campus, UCT. Funding is provided by the Hasso Plattner Institut which has established schools at Stanford (USA) and Potsdam (Germany).
Teaching design thinking requires different spaces from traditional lecture theatres commonly provided at universities and KMH has embarked
on an extensive collaboration journey with the d-school faculty to co-create the brief and design for the building.
The site itself is small, triangularly shaped and significantly elevated above the surrounding roads. These spatial challenges combined with the
d-schools specific spatial requirements led to the concept of a singular roof structure derived by abstracting the sites geometry and topography.
The large span lattice shell roof accommodates the school’s current brief and provides maximum flexibility for the school to prototype into their
space as their programme develops and evolves over time.
