!Khwa Ttu San Heritage Centre
Cape Town ZA
KLG Architects
2019
Type
Cultural
Tags
memory spaces , cultural facilities, energy sustainability, near the countryside, post-Apartheid
Visitability
Allowed
Description
Museum is the last phase of the rural !Khwa ttu precinct dedicated to the San culture and heritage. It displays the San ‘way of life’, not like a traditional Museum, but with the building conceived as an organic landscape with an emphasis on sustainable and ethical design. The undulating structure is embedded within the landscape along a granite ridge overlooking vistas towards the Atlantic Ocean, close to Yzerfontein on the West Coast.An indigenous planted concrete roof sinuously integrates the building into the setting. Internally, the exposed granite rocks become an integral part of an exhibition wall.Concrete as material was chosen for its versatility, structural plasticity austere aesthetic qualities. These qualities are displayed in the undulations and curves of the roof, which required a very specific consistency and firmness of material. The roof parapets are carefully moulded to specific curvatures which support the growing medium on top of multi-layered drainage insulation boards.The structure consciously demonstrates a balance between context, material and design methodology through a combination of environmental strategies with contemporary technologies.(Description provided by the architects)