World Building of the Year... goes to the Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre
The Mapungubwe Interpretation centre by Peter Rich Architects has won the World building of the year, award for 2009 at the World Architecture Festival held in Barcelona.
The project has also won the David Alsop Sustainability Award, Institute of Structural Engineers – Structural Awards 2009.
The Mapungubwe National Park celebrates the site of an ancient trading civilization in the context of a natural setting. The complex landscape was both the inspiration for the design and the source of the materials for the construction of the new Interpretation Centre, resulting in a composition of structures that are authentically rooted to their location. The building is visually contained by two hollow cairns that evoke route-markers found in Southern African cultures. Timbrel vaulting is used to construct billowing forms that expose the arched edges of their thin shells, an analogy of the archaeological revelation of past cultures.
The project’s agenda extends beyond the presentation of the area’s history to awaken an understanding of the vulnerability of the local ecology. These objectives are manifested in the construction process of the Centre in which unemployed local people were trained in the manufacture of stabilized earth tiles and in building the vaulting.
Text from www.peterricharchitects.co.za
Labels: 2009, Architects, architecture, Barcelona, culture category, Interpretation centre, Mapungubwe, Peter Rich, winner, world architecture festival, world building of the year
posted by Justin at 9:17 AM
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