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UFS Modular Lecture Building gets national recognition

11 May 2023 | Story Samkelo Fetile | Photo iFlair Photography

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) Modular Lecture Building on its Bloemfontein Campus recently received a National Merit Award from the South African Institute of Architects (SAIA). The awards were announced at the 2021/2022 Corobrik SAIA Awards of Merit and Awards for Excellence ceremony in Johannesburg.

The multi-functional Modular Lecture Building, considered a hub for innovative learning, was designed by Roodt Architects in partnership with GXY Architects.

The adjudication panel received a total of 42 architectural projects from around the country, including infrastructure developments in the public and private sector. The SAIA Awards programme is structured over a two-year period and is conducted in two stages. In stage one regional awards for architecture are presented by the nine regional institutes affiliated to SAIA. In stage two the winning regional projects that are consequently entered into the national awards receive either a Commendation, an Award of Merit, and/or an Award for Excellence, which recognises exceptional achievement in the field of architecture.

In their citation the adjudicators noted that the Modular Lecture Building sets a benchmark for rational planning and technical efficiency and helps complete the campus urban framework through its placing and material choices.

Multi-functional spaces for students

Nico Janse van Rensburg, Senior Director at UFS University Estates, said the recognition is a testament to the UFS’s aspirations to renew, rejuvenate, regenerate, and revisit facilities and infrastructure.

“This award proves that excellence can be achieved with a reasonable set budget,” Janse van Rensburg said. “Energy efficiency and green building principles can be achieved by careful planning and teamwork.”

The Modular Lecture Building offers a variety of much-needed flexible teaching and learning spaces. “I have been using the facilities in this building for two years now, and I can say the building is much more spacious and conducive to studying,” said Hymne Spies, a third-year BSc student majoring in biochemistry and genetics. “The many plugs make it more efficient for studying, as one can plug in his or her laptop. There is also a nice computer lab for us to make use of.”

The UFS is proud that the construction of this facility forms part of a bigger endeavour – to create a cohesive campus identity that improves core business and to further extend its innovation and excellence as per its Vision 130.

Take a tour of the new Modular Lecturing Space and Assessment Centre Building:

News Archive

Prof. Iain Benson delivers inaugural lecture in UFS's Faculty of Law

2010-10-27

Prof. Shaun de Freitas (left) of the Faculty of Law at the UFS and Prof. Iain Benson.

Prof. Iain T. Benson delivered his inaugural address as Professor Extraordinary in the Department of Constitutional Law and Philosophy of Law in the Faculty of Law at University of the Free State (UFS) faculty last week.

Originally hailing from Canada and currently residing with his family in France, Prof. Benson is an academic with a wealth of experience and expertise in the field of law, especially with regard to the right of conscience and religion. His achievements number many, including being a Senior Associate Counsel at one of Canada’s leading law firms, Miller Thompson LLP; and serving on the Founding Board of the Global Centre for Pluralism.

Apart from his work on leading cases in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Prof. Benson also has strong ties with the law in South Africa. He is part of the Continuity Committee that is responsible for the major undertaking of drawing up the South African Charter of Religious Rights and Freedoms in cooperation with all the major religions in South Africa which, when completed, will be the first use of Section 234 of the South African Constitution.

The title of the inaugural lecture was Living together with Disagreements and the Limits of the Law, which tackled various conscientious and topical issues regarding the complex relationships between the law and religions. Starting off the lecture, Prof. Benson recalled that living together with disagreement is a necessary achievement in free and democratic societies and that differences of belief and opinion should not be resolved by force acceptance of a “one-size fits all” model. Mentioning religion and same-sex marriages, Prof. Benson held these up as issues which reasonable people may disagree on and should hence be respected by the public sphere that is girded round by the law.

Quoting Sophocles’ Antigone, Prof. Benson noted that tensions between the so-called divine and imminent or state laws as in a non-theocratic state have always been with us. He stressed the importance of a wide respect by the law for civic associations in addition to but particularly in relation to religion which guides citizens views about wrong and right beyond matters that are regulated by law.

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