Situated 140 km north-east of Cape Town stands the kindergarten “Hamlet Crèche”, the third project to be realized as part of the university Design.Develop.Build programme of the RWTH in Aachen. Undertaken by students in conjunction with residents of the township, it was erected in a timber post-and-beam form of construction and provides space for 80 children ranging in age from three months to five years. The 35 × 9.5-metre rectangular structure is covered by a prefabricated timber roof, the articulation of which into five asymmetric gables adopts the scale and character of the local houses. The administrative and sanitary spaces are separated from the three group rooms and the kitchen in a section of their own. A movable partition allows two of the group rooms to be joined to form a larger space for village community meetings. On the south face, turned away from the sun and overlooking the garden, the spaces are set back to different degrees, creating a generous loggia that can be used as a play and dining area. The sunlit north facade, with an infill of clay bricks and a rendered finish, serves as a passive solar absorber. In a building devoid of heating, this is the only source of thermal energy during the cold winter months, when temperatures can sink below 0 °C. Stacked between the timber posts, the bricks provide a storage mass that is insulated externally and planked with wood strips from fruit crates.
