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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

German Ambassador speaks on universities as agents for transformation

2016-05-25

Description: German Ambassador speaks on universities Tags: German Ambassador speaks on universities

Eva Ziegert, JC van der Merwe, Lindokuhle Ntuli, Anita Ohl-Meyer, Ambassador Walter Lindner, Tali Nates, and Prof Leon Wessels at the dialogue session hosted by the IRSJ
Photo: Johan Roux

“Change is facilitated through education, not by means of radicalism, violence, or revolution.” Speaking at the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) on Thursday 12 May 2016, the German Ambassador, Walter Lindner, urged students to engage in profitable dialogue instead, keeping their values and ideals in mind while changing the system from the inside.

The Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice (IRSJ) hosted a full day of dialogues and discussions, the highlight of which was a critical dialogue with Ambassador Lindner, entitled “Universities as agents of transformation in society—Germany’s experience with the student protests of the 1968 movement and the difficulties it has reconciling with its past.” This was followed by a student colloquium, hosted by the Student Representative Council, which concluded with the second in the Africa’s Many Liberations seminar series, co-hosted by the IRSJ and the International Studies Group (ISG), with the title of “Fanon and the relevance of personal and collective decolonisation in today’s South Africa”.

Mr Lindner related his experience of student protests in Germany during the late 1960s, drawing certain parallels with South Africa’s own recent protests. According to Ambassador Lindner, it is “the impatient youth that drives forward change”, but cautioned against radicalism as a long-term solution.

Pointing out the various challenges facing humankind today, such as the lack of natural resources, unbridled climate change, and population growth, Mr Lindner stated that politicians (and the youth of today) would do well to focus on these greater issues, rather than focusing on the more mundane issues with which they are faced on a day-to-day basis.

The subsequent dialogue session was facilitated by Tali Nates, Director of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre. A diverse array of questions and comments, both radical and more conservative, was directed at the ambassador, which he handled with unflappable aplomb.

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