Johannesburg, South Africa
project image
Lebone II School for Royal Bafokeng
Phokeng, South Africa - finalist
Instead of placing the school in the landscape as a fortified environment isolated from its context, the existing landscape is allowed to bleed through the streets, courtyards, assembly spaces, sports fields and food gardens of Lebone II - a microscopic version of a village. The result is a rich tapestry of outside places in which students can engage in physical and imaginative activities - students learn from traditional teaching methods, but also by interacting with their environment, man-made and natural. The landscape design unfolds as a system of spaces in between the required architectural infrastructure and existing environment; a middle ground between the formal and informal, the man-made and natural, predictable and unforeseen, the ordered and chaotic - worlds too often segregated in the design of schools.