ST.JOHNS COLLEGE HIGHSCHOOL EXPANSION

Development Data Project Role

Total Floor Area: 3 501m²

Height: 4 Storeys

Coverage: 1 087m²

Project Value: R55 million

£2 600 000

Sketch design architect from inception, through design development to tender stage. Principal building model creator and documentation lead. Existing building analysis, spatial layout, building shell and facade design, material selection, client meetings. Visualisations, detail renders and presentation for client signoff and final approval.

Project Description

St. Johns College sits along Houghton ridge, overlooking Johannesburg as one of the oldest and most esteemed private schools in the country. Founded in 1898, today’s campus has evolved over decades from the original blueprints designed by Herbert Baker and Frank Fleming. It is an institution of educational excellence and as a Grade 1 heritage site, any intervention on the grounds requires the utmost care. Comprising a pre-preparatory, preparatory and high school amalgamated together, it was the high school component that has seen the largest growth in the last decade and the school required additional classrooms and facilities to ensure growth met the demand. The brief called for the gold standard of educational facilities and building design, to be efficient in terms of use but expansive in usability. The final aesthetic also needed to sit apart from the historical styles of the original school yet not appear foreign in material and form.

Design began with viable open sites across the campus with connection to the existing highschool however such areas were in short supply. The decision to demolish old teacher residences and student dormitory in the NE corner was approved to facilitate the required land area needed.

The layout of the 14 new classrooms centred around a new quad, forming an extension to the main arterial circulation. The site sits atop the ridge edge, overlooking the school pool and fields on the lower level. This position meant highly unstable soils which required excavation down 12m and the creation of several steelwork strapped concrete rafts from which structure could be built. Due to this large vertical variation across the site, the decision to sink into the quadrangle a stepped outdoor gathering space combined well in connecting the upper classrooms with the lower pool level. The classrooms themselves were designed with large cavity walls and deep reveals, passive cooling paths and double glazed, all to combat the extremes of summer and winter temperatures. Internally the classrooms were acoustically developed, and collapsible adjoining partitions and reconfigurable furniture selected for a wide range of blended teaching and learning scenarios. Energy generation via PV rooftop panels and heat pumps ensured efficient building heating with passive cross ventilation considered in the glazing detailing.

While the external facade was kept to facebrick with deep reveals, the internal circulation edge around the quad was wrapped in a skin of vertical aluminium fins, in the profile of the sword of St John, creating the modern and visually permeable softer side of the building. This project was awarded a GIFA Award or Merit in 2021.