SOL PLAATJIE UNIVERSITY ARCHITECTURAL COMPETITION

TYPOLOGY : Competitions | CLIENT : Sol Plaatjie University | LOCATION : Kimberley, Northern Cape | YEAR : 2022

The Lemon Pebble Team in a joint venture with Office 24-7, were finalists in architectural competition to design the new Great Hall on the North Campus of Sol Plaatjie University.

The intention was to excavate the memory of the Malay Camp that had been erased in an act of early forced removals. The memory of the erasure is inscribed into the building itself  as cuts, identified to open up space, to give access, to make penetrable and porous spaces of power and privilege. This is made spatially legible by recreating a historic building that cuts into the new building to reimagine a new public entrance that excavates the marks of the old camp. The façade is a thick brick screen to create shade from the hot Kimberley sun and to propose a new architectural language that merges the old and new.