A project of the University of Arts, Linz/ die Architektur/ Prof. Roland Gnaiger and BASEhabitat in cooperation with SARCH and Education Africa
Home for handicapped children, Orangefarm, Southafrica

"Tebogo - the first solar passive energy house in the southern hemisphere!"
Wolfgang Feist, Father of the passive energy house idea, Germany

The aim was to plan and to build a joyful and comfortable place for the therapy of almost fifty handicapped children in the township Orangefarm close to Johannesburg.
Without the use of external energy the new buildings show a crucial improvement of the thermal comfort. Unlike the surrounding buildings, mostly shacks with an indoor temperature from 2 C° - 45 C° the new buildings reach a thermal comfort that reduces the temperature fluctuation inside to 9 C° (18 C°- 26 C°). The building materials were collected directly from the township: earth, concrete blocks, clay, straw, timber, grass mats.
Concept and Impact: Twenty-five students were responsible for the design, technical planning, sponsoring and constructing. In six weeks a dining area with kitchen, therapy rooms with sanitary units and a generously dimensioned pergola were erected together with local workers.
The project goes beyond constructing and training in ecological building methods – it also contributed to intercultural and mutualsocial understanding. For us participants from Austria it was a great learning opportunity to grow in our sensitivity and responsibility as architects and as human beings.

“Today we can erect buildings in which no outside energy is needed to provide a pleasant internal climate, buildings that use the resources of their location rather than destroying them, that enrich the environment and offer people new challenges and new work. To achieve this we do not need more responsibility, nor must we restrict ourselves or do without something. All that is necessary is additional intelligence, more teamwork, more sensuality, joy and beauty.”
(Prof. Roland Gnaiger, Head of Department Architecture and Design, University of Art Linz)