Location Windhoek CBD, Khomas Region

Project Status Documentation Complete 

Client National Botanical Research Institute

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This new wing is to house four large atmosphere-controlled herbarium halls for Namibia’s national plant specimen archive, specimen preparation facilities, laboratories, research offices and independent offices for SASSCAL (the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management). Dictated by the programme and the steep and restricted site, a linear layout places the halls in an eastern excavated enfilade below SASSCAL’s two floors, along a central triple-volume atrium with the NBRI facilities along the west. The atrium creates internal transparency between the research spaces which overlook the atrium floor where specimens are consulted by staff and visitors. A pedestrian ramp combines with a trellised planting screen to shade the semi-transparent west façade which is the public face of the building and frames a new triangular garden courtyard with the existing double-storey post-modern style building. The extension will also resolve some of the existing access and public-private access problems.