Nursery Raithby

In the winter semester 08/09 we have carried out the student draft "Nursery Raithby" in the context of our consolidation meeting in the subjects wood construction and building construction. Raithby is a small community in the Western Cape region of South Africa, located between Stellenbosch and Somerset West. Due to the demolition of an old kindergarten building, there was a real lack of space there. The design task was therefore to design a kindergarten for a total of 80 children on a site made available to us.

Every year in the 9th semester, we offer a design that is developed jointly by civil engineering and architecture students in small groups. We traditionally work together with the Department of Timber Construction of the Faculty of Architecture. In this case, however, it was not just a theoretical design but from the beginning of the design it was clear that we would build the building together with our students and local workers.

At the beginning of March 2009, a group of about 50 people travelled to Raithby to build the kindergarten in a record time of only 9 weeks, using the simplest means possible.