Next Project

Canvas_Colour Production Hub

Part 2 Project 2008
Rozanne Basson
University of Pretoria | South Africa
Canvas _ Colour Production Hub

The project aims to create meaningful place in an African city through the use of colour and light within a fragmented urban environment of lost and isolated space.

To celebrate the site, a paint production facility was chosen as an unconventional programme. This is expressed in the dynamic integration of light and colour as formal determinants in the articulation of architectural surface. Building form responds equally to place and programme, the latter revealed to passers-by through the considered articulation of transparency, translucency and opacity. Public walkways and platforms act as movement generators through the site, reactivating it as a place of serendipitous meeting.

The relationship between art and architecture is considered and colour, in a Semperian sense, becomes the mediator between the tectonic and experiential realms.

Rozanne Basson


The project is nominated as an intriguing object for architectural criticism. The solution contests convention and participates in a broad architectural discourse, investigating current theory, local relevance and context. The brief is translated into an evolving construction rather than a conventional building and expresses the idea of serendipitous gathering. The interactivity of architectural surface informs the design which itself becomes interactive with its users. The choice of site enhances the theme and transforms an awkward service space in the city into a significant place. The design is intentionally abstract and avoids cultural reference, but issues important to this School of Architecture are integrated and resolved from conception to tectonic resolution.

Tutor(s)

2008
• Page Hits: 8607         • Entry Date: 28 July 2008         • Last Update: 16 September 2008