EcoSUN Settlement

In this project the Faculty of Architecture and Design of Wismar University cooperated with the professional team of the EcoSUN project, within a programme supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF). EcoSUN´s objective is to combine technological and social components for a sustainable settlements within a township demonstration unit. In response to the architectural scope, this student design project ties into the overall EcoSUN scheme, focussing on its opportunity for sustainably spatial development on an urban, housing and detail scale.

A preceding research seminar has provided the academic background for the project´s focus on sustainable housing, including a thorough analysis of the specific geographic, political and socio-economic situation in South Africa. Within the design project, students developed different concepts for a settlement in Kroonvale, a former township of the historic city of Graaff-Reinet, in the interior “Karoo” Region of the Eastern Cape Province. The student brief asked for an urban concept for the selected site, focussing on a unit of approx. 10 houses and its Multipurpose Centre (MPC), housing technical equipment and communal space shared by the community.