Overview

South Africa’s Western Cape Provincial Government required a new public Day Clinic of approximately 1000m² in Beaufort West, a small town populated primarily by low-income earners, situated in an “arid desert” climate. The concept was to limit the carbon footprint, and to positively impact on the community prior to, during, and after construction.

The building is planned around courtyards. The wings are accessed along glazed “veranda” like walkways. Transparency through the building is used to orientate the visitor, while light, colour and outward views
offer spaciousness and a sense of well-being, an important element in a clinic.

Environmental initiatives comprise obvious strategies of good practice including appropriate orientation, calculated overhangs, solar power to heat water, and the extensive use of renewable local softwood.

More unusual strategies include rammed earth walls of soil sourced from a nearby dam which reduced the transportation footprint of building material and the reliance on fired clay brick. The wall width of 600mm
increases the building’s thermal mass and stabilises internal temperatures. The construction method also assisted in providing unskilled labour with employment.

With the extremely high air change requirements to prevent airborne infections, and with no air-conditioning to the public spaces, rock stores were used to temper hot summer air and cold winter air. The rock store air intake flues project through the roofs like chimneys, high up to escape the blown dust at lower levels. Their curved cowls assist with air intake whilst adding a quietly jovial air to the facility.

The building reflects the vernacular origin of the adjacent houses with their pitched and vented roofs, chimneys and verandas. These have been reinterpreted to provide internal volumetric resolution. The dropped eaves over the verandas block the hot summer sun but allow the low angled winter sun to penetrate the building, warming the backs of visitors siting on the window cills which have been designed as benches.

After presenting the proposed clinic to the people of Beaufort West at a public meeting, their inputs were incorporated into the design. The building process incorporated the Province’s Expanded Public Works
Programme which requires a large portion of the work and supply of materials to come from the town and region. The programme also stresses gender equality. The method of construction, notably the rammed earth external walls, was intentionally labour intensive. As well as providing poverty alleviating work for more people, it introduced a new construction technique and skills for further upliftment.

In an age of icons scrambling for attention, the building attempts to respect its neighbourhood and present a civic presence accessible to all. It is a building for the people, and more importantly, of the people.

Find out more

South Africa’s Western Cape Provincial Government required a new public Day Clinic of approximately 1000m² in Beaufort West, a small town populated primarily by low-income earners, situated in an “arid desert” climate. The concept was to limit the carbon footprint, and to positively impact on the community prior to, during, and after construction.