School Village in Mzamba
- Julia Liese
South Africa is a land of contrasts. Although it is economically more advanced than any other country of that continent, abject poverty is widespread. One of the structurally weakest provinces is Eastern Cape in the south-east. Here, South Africa's social differences are blatantly obvious. While this region, with its varied landscape, is becoming a popular destination for wealthy citizens of the country, it is also an area traditionally settled by the Xhosa, a people that even today lives in round huts with grassed roofs and where women still bring water home in vessels balanced on their heads. The unemployment level is high, the standard of education low, and there is a lack of perspective. In a bid to change this, the Austrian organization s2arch set itself the task of improving living standards through good school education. S2arch sought support from various German and Austrian faculties of architecture which, in the context of design-and-build projects with students, were to assume responsibility for the planning and construction of school facilities. For Mzamba, an extensive, scattered settlement on the Indian Ocean some 200 km south-west of Durban, a master plan was drawn up at the University of Technology in Munich. The strict layout of this plan allows design latitude for the individual buildings, while at the same time establishing rules that ensure a harmonious appearance for the overall development. The educational concept of the private developer envisaged a series of "small worlds": each class was to have its own building with a veranda and garden. Teaching is in accordance with the South African curriculum, but the carefully designed open realms provide adequate scope for additional pedagogic activities. The children grow vegetables, for example, which are prepared in the school kitchen; sports training is undertaken on the campus; various tasks can be carried out by smaller groups in the numerous recesses, on walls and benches; and there is space for playing and chatting.
