Usually representing spirits, ancestors or the primordial couple, these figures were placed in shrines and treated with great respect. Through a wide range of style, scale, belief and function the couples depicted share a timeless, serene equality necessary to the continuity of their societies.

Biovac Centre Phase 1 / Studio Mas

Architects: Studio Mas
Location: Ndabeni, Cape Town South Africa
Project Year: 2007
Photographer: Studio Mas
Website: www.studiomas.com

- 30 April 2015
- Edwin Seda
Industrial Centres , Research Centres , Urban Renewal , Contemporary , Contemporary African Directory ,

Its a play of solids and voids, of thematic light intonations and a subdued aura of space within the laboratory commissioned by Biovac and implemented by studio mas. The way the project has been incredibly put together was so simple, the final outlook simply blows the mind.

From the Project Architects:
The Biovac vaccine laboratory in Ndabeni, Cape Town, is a place of serious science, but also of innovation and invention. The brief calls for a lab block with a small office component taking advantage of views west. The clinical QC laboratory has to comply with stringent international standards to accredit Biovac the right to manufacture and test Vaccines in SA

The building, with its central double volume, mediates between the admin wing and the lab, tying disparate working groups together. The simple layout of laboratory and offices with sun control skin is elevated to allow for a future lab. Windows are cut into the laboratory wherever required.

The sunscreens are incredibly simply put together, being glued to a rudimentary galvanized steel frame using double-sided tape. This inventiveness in the face of economy and budgets is also evident in red perspex pendant lights.

The Biovac centre has been credited as prescient of the infection that is coming in South African architecture offering opportunity for playful invention and creativity.

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