South Africa Ithuba Project
Background
The initiator of the project is the Austrian SARCH Foundation, that started its first assignment in 2003 in the Orangefarm settlement in Johannesburg. The workroom and a house for the proffessors was built by German and Austrian architecture students. Gradually new edifices were added. Five architecture schools are currently participating in constructing a new college in Johannesburg in an area shaped by poverty and lacking infrastructure.
Mission
The mission of the South Africa Ithuba Project is to build a new classroom and a library in the existing primary school complex Ithuba Skills College, located in a suburb Magagula Heights near Johannesburg, the Republic of South Africa. The project moreover aims to combine sustainable principles together with low cost construction in order to reach the optimal building model for the developing countries. The participants also wish to exchange the knowledge and skills with other European students and with local inhabitants.
Project
Plans for a new classroom and a library were drawn in Slovenia, where also specific technical studies of the material have been made with the help of prof. dr. Sašo Medved, a counsellor for building construction. In August and September 2010 both buildings, made of local materials, will be set up in Johannesburg with a help Slovene architecture students, local people, and pupils of the Ithuba Skills College.