OH14 Iain Low interview

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OH2 Public Buildings

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What is the state of our public buildings? – is the question Ches Besada and I asked ourselves when we started planning this tour. Schools, cemeteries, defunct shopping malls, police stations and transport interchanges formed the basis of our enquiry. What we found was that the best public buildings need to accommodate a variety of needs. A police station needs to be a welcoming place as well as a place of holding; a school needs to double up as an income generator for the community; and a cemetery must be a sculptural plaza to remember the dead whilst overlooking the ocean. Photo credits: Cesar Besada  Simonstown Memorial - R.S Uytenbogaardt   Werdmuller Centre - RS Uytenbogaardt Usazazo Secondary School - Noero Wolff    IIDMM - Gabriel Fagan Architects Elsenburg Agricultural College - Design Studio 
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OH6 Pius Pahl Monograph

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I started becoming intrigued by Pius Pahl when, at the Bauhaus museum in Berlin, I spotted a couple of his drawings on display. They were drawings of buildings designed by Mies van der Rohe who was one of the teachers at the Bauhaus School in Weimar from 1930 - 1933. I started investigating Pahl and found out that he was a German architect who married a South African woman and decided to move to a quiet dorpie of Stellenbosch shortly after World War II. He opened up a practice in Stellenbosch and the result is that Stellenbosch now has the biggest collection of private homes designed in the Bauhaus tradition. I just had to visit them. Luckily I was not the only Bauhaus/Pahl enthusiast and I got in contact with a man who not only owns one of these Pahl gems but also restores and maintains his house in the suitable manner which respects the original intentions. He invited me to see his house and also put me in touch with other owners, who might I add, are very much aware of the si...
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OH7 Climate Skin

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In response to the issue of ‘sustainability’ in architecture – an issue which is often exploited by the sale of gimmicks and tricks to ‘lower the carbon footprint of the building’ – I wanted to see what aspect of the building has the most influence in the saving of energy consumption. According to Paul Carew and Michelle Ludwig of   PJC Consulting , the temperature control of the building has a huge role to play and, in turn, the design of the façade becomes vital. How one designs the façade of the building in terms of heat gain, solar control and daylight penetration can save major costs not to mention renewable energy. So we spent the day walking through the city and looking at building facades while Paul and Michelle pointed out the various features which make the facades energy efficient or not. Photo credits: Ches Besada
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