Somerset College ESTEAM Centre in Western Cape, South Africa

Image credits: Walters & Cohen Architects

Somerset College is a co-educational independent school in South Africa, located on a beautiful estate in the Winelands of the Western Cape. A double-height prototyping/testing space runs the length of the building, encouraging pupils to test their ideas and think big. Off this main space are rooms for coding and robotics, a makerspace, innovation and solution spaces, a reflection space, a physics lab, art rooms and offices. Native vines trail up the tension cables on the terrace to ground it in nature and provide shading, while the white walls and dark gable roofs are a contemporary response to the Cape Dutch aesthetic