Lighting in Design Q4 2018

construction.The library scales this heritage up into a 22 cm thick freestanding concrete shell rising up to 36 m high and lifted off the ground to reveal a single hollowed-out volume ascending upward to its highest point overlooking University Square. The inverse of Kimberley’s iconic Big Hole dia- mond mine, the building is a distinctive sculptured object, arising from the endless horizontality like a ‘koppie’, ‘brakdak’ house, or mine shaft. In a single material, concrete is structure, enclosure, climatic attenuator, flexible use-enabler, extended tradition, and noble experience. In everyday university life, the building is a refuge, a 24-hour winter lounge and summer verandah. In a world of scarce resources, it is highly energy efficient, allowing in the right amount of natural light with significantly mitigated heat-gain or loss, the internal temperature further moder- ated by hot and cold water pipes embedded into concrete floors. In the city, it’s a landmark of democratic learn- ing, social and cultural exchange, and a generator of economic potential which always comes from empowered knowledge and ideas.

monly recorded outside of the direct experience and as a more linear and one-directional transmis- sion abstract from specific cultural settings. The ‘neutrality’ of science. The SPU Library and Resource Centre inte- grates both. It’s a social place where people make themselves available to wide-ranging incidental and planned interchange in the course of daily life, both in physical space and online, with and without books, collectively and in solitude, directed and enabled by mentors or among themselves. It is at the same time a tree, the side of a river, a public square, and a street. Centred on a raked public forum, the ground floor is an extension of Kimberley’s pavements, paths, squares and gardens. It’s a public space sheltered from the cyclical hot and cold extremes of the arid climate. Ascending from public to private, each additional floor is another ‘public square’ ac- cessed from its perimeter to enable 3-dimensional exploration of a continuous knowledge-scape. Solid grass-reinforced moulded mud forms typify South Africa’s interior vernacular ‘brakdak’

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LiD Q4 - 2018