Typology                           
Education / heritage / architecture

Client                                 
Bishops Preparatory School

Location                            
Rondebosch, Cape Town

Year
2019

Team                                  
Architecture: Urban Concepts
Quantity surveying: Riverside Consulting
Structural engineering: Kantey & Templer
Fire and mechanical engineering: Consultmech

Image credits                   
Drawings and graphics by Urban Concepts

Resource Centre and Classrooms Alterations
Bishops Preparatory School, Rondebosch

The School commissioned Urban Concepts to explore the possibility of a new resource centre which encompasses access to multiple forms of information and creates opportunity for different modes of teaching and learning. The beauty of this project is in the strategic re-use of existing spaces which no longer serve the school adequately, and the re-imagining of these to create new, purpose-designed spaces without increasing the building footprint.

Working closely with the School, Urban Concepts identified three existing ground floor classrooms, adjacent to Jagger Hall, as the potential site for the Resource Centre. It was proposed that these classrooms move to the old library and computer lab, so that the total number of classrooms remains the same. In doing this, it was possible to design the classrooms to be better sized and proportioned, as per the teachers’ requirements.

The proposed Resource Centre is a large open plan space for books, informal teaching, groupwork, e-learning, reading, study, quiet games etc. Its position next to the Jagger Hall and courtyard give opportunity for it to further activate the Jagger courtyard. The Resource Centre opens onto a previously unused outdoor area behind the classrooms which is proposed as a landscaped Reading Garden. This creates an exciting new learning space and connects the Resource Centre to its natural environment, adding a sense of playfulness to the existing building.

Beyond the Resource Centre and Classrooms themselves, the proposal contributes to the greater campus by creating a human scale along the east courtyard with the addition of a lightweight canopy and seating to edge the existing double storey building and activating this courtyard by creating new openings on the previously blank façade which overlooks the space.