Royal Schools Sky City

University of the Free State

Project idea

Royal Schools Sky City is an 8500m² school complex consisting of a Pre-primary school, Primary school, and Secondary school with shared amenities. The brief was to design a safe, , low maintenance, high quality yet very affordable private school for 1655 learners from the Sky City community.

Project description

Sky City is a new low to medium income township south of Johannesburg, South Africa. Royal Schools Sky City was the first building to break ground on the open savanna. Construction of 12 000 new residential units commenced soon after. The marketing intention was to provide an educational facility that would be fully functional before the houses became occupied.
The position of the school complex on site was influenced by pedestrian and vehicular access and the detrimental dolomite soil conditions. The placement of the individual buildings were informed by passive design principles as well as function. The buildings itself demarcate the boundaries between the various schools. These buildings also house the shared amenities.
Though managed as a single institution, the 3 schools functions mostly independently, with little interaction between the different age groups for safety reasons. The routes to the schools only intersect where there would be ample adult supervision. This notion of passive supervision is further utilised within the school blocks. The school blocks are compact and surround open air courtyards. Classrooms around these courtyards have numerous larger windows facing the courtyards.
The open air courtyard building typology was chosen to celebrate the warm South African climate. The courtyards width was informed by sun angles. These courtyards are never in complete shade and the sun penetrates every classroom in winter. However the classrooms are protected from the sun by the roof overhangs and passages during the summer months. The passages throughout the school have pause, gathering as well as semi private spaces. These spaces house water drinking fountains, art class wash up stations and seating. This sequence of spaces adjacent to the passages aids in breaking the horizontal scale down to a human level.
Even though the scale on plan seems vast, care was taken to the respect the vertical scale of the future modest homes of the surrounding township. The one and two storey buildings provided uncomplicated construction, providing abundant employment opportunities to unskilled labourers from the surrounding communities. Therefor the construction detailing and material choice was to be as straightforward as possible.

Technical information

For the construction of the school complex face brick, pre-cast reinforced concrete slabs, steel structures with timber roof trusses and sheet metal was chosen. The steel and pre-cast slab structures were fast to erect and the detailing of these were simple and honest.
The school hall serves as introduction to the school complex. Steel was chosen for its plastic properties but also allowed for an open unobstructed space. The detailing of the school block timber roof structures is echoed on the primary facade of the school hall with steel supports. The larger overhang protects a translucent polycarbonate sheeting wall. This sheeting allows for sufficient natural light to enter the hall during the day.
Throughout the entire school complex the light tectonic elements (steel and timber) were made visible as to offset the heavy stereotomic (brick and concrete) base as to further the notions of playfulness and interest.
Face brick was chosen as the predominant building material, becauseit is maintenance free and there is no additional upkeep expenses. Usually the colour of face bricks is chosen to provide an aesthetically pleasing yet neutral background. In this budget conscious project, two contrasting colours of face brick were selected to be used to colour block walls. In combination with the grey roof colour, this forms the basis of the school’s permanent colour scheme. The face brick colours work well with the minimal plastered sections, painted in bold, cheerful colours