The adaptive re-use of a 70’s office slab and adjoining hotel into 600 student housing units in 2, 3 and 4-bed clusters, an 18th floor social space and a ground floor lobby.
Financed by the Italtile and Ceramic Foundation, this four-classroom primary school in Mayfair West serves students from the nearby Slovo Park informal settlement. The 4,800-square-foot structure is situated down the road from Salvazione’s main school, a church building that had housed pre-kindergarten through grade seven. The new development accommodates the younger grades, allowing more space […]
Vuja De is a 330-unit affordable housing block designed for Ithemba Property in downtown Johannesburg. The project is one of more than 2000 new affordable rental units the developer has completed in the inner-city this year. Local Studio designed the courtyard to be an extension of tenants’ living spaces as a counterpoint to micro-units which […]
This project was commissioned by a global Non-Profit Organization focussed on advocacy training for youth. The organization originally purchased a defunct wedding venue, which included chalets and a dining hall. The brief was to build two new hostel blocks housing 120 beds with communal spaces and to extend the old function hall to cater to […]
PROTEA GLEN SECONDARY SCHOOL is one of the Alternative Building Technology (ABT) schools rolled out by the Department of Education and Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development in 2018. The school won the Mitek Industries LSFB (Light Steel Frame Building) category in 2019. We aimed to design the school in such a way as to make […]
Local Studio were, interestingly, given this brief to trick council into thinking that they were building one massive mansion, when in fact, they would be building four compact residential units on a single stand. Ironically, this area falls into the Corridors of Freedom Strategic Area Framework. Local Studio has worked for the Adamjee Group on […]
This project illustrates a rapid urbanisation of a suburb of Pretoria as a result of increased numbers of students at the University of Pretoria. The project came about through an invited competition, in which Local Studio were finalists. The design process follows a very rational stacking of 600 student rooms around vast interconnected communal spaces, […]
The Gordon Insititute of Business Science approached Local Studio in 2019 to make substantial alterations to their library and main auditorium. We had previously been appointed to relook at the university’s masterplan which was originally designed by Henri Comrie in the early 2000’s. Our design approach for the library was to open up a new […]
Kenroyden consists of six large office suites, two retail units and a rooftop event space. It is one of the first new builds to be built in Braamfontein since the decline of the inner city in the mid 1970s. The building replaces an elegant but run-down facebrick structure built in the 1930s. Before being acquired […]
South Point Towers comprises 200 housing units, a retail space, a gym, a creche and a roof bar. When built, this will be one of the largest investments in the inner city since democracy. It involves the renovation of a 20-storey b-grade office tower into a luxury condominium development. The building is notorious for housing […]
Electric City is the proposed redevelopment of the Aberdare Factory complex into a mixed-use development, which will consist of factories, housing, an art gallery, a school and a rooftop park. The challenge in the project lay in the fact that the large factory spaces needed to remain functional as such, while the site needed accommodate […]
Local Studio’s affordable housing development in Westdene. The scheme consists of 76 residential units ranging from 16sqm to 25sqm as well as a community centre and garden.
The WITS Gateways project illustrates an agenda of Local Studio to promote the development of more pedestrian public space in downtown Johannesburg through the reimagining of pedestrian entrances into a university campus as ‘filling stations for pedestrians’. Johannesburg scores significantly under on the UN Habitat recommended quota of 15m2 public open space per capita […]
The Westbury Housing Project arose out of the precinct plan Local Studio had proposed for Westbury from which the NMT links and the Westbury Bridge have been completed. When beginning work on this project, Local Studio immediately recognised the problematic layouts of the walk-up apartment buildings haphazardly placed in the centre of the township. The […]
Winstead Gardens consists of 110 housing units, an action court and a coffee shop. This work involves the densification of a well known modernist apartment building in Parktown, which had been run down and neglected for 20 years. The project seeks to double the number of residential units through a restructuring of existing building, rooftop […]
Project 35 is a middle-income housing development, which tries to break the trend of gated communities in Northern Johannesburg, by creating defensible public spaces through well-considered edge development. It comprises 500 residential units, a mosque, a community centre, retail space and offices. Local Studio acted as urban designers on this project as well as designing […]
The Ikamva Youth Pods will be the first purpose-built spaces to support the very well run educational system in South Africa by Ikamva Youth, a public benefit organisation. The pods offer underprivileged youth space to do homework. The buildings replace the standard pre-fabricated classroom, but still offer the same convenience, being temporary, quick to build […]
House S consists of four bedrooms, a gym, a sukkah and a 25m lap pool. It is a renovation of an existing 1960s house in an area that has emerged as the main Orthodox Jewish area in Johannesburg. In line with Orthodox Jewish traditions, the house attempts to forge a strong relationship with the street, […]
The significance of House Mckay lies in the fact that it combines boundary wall typologies and house typologies. Traditionally the two are separate elements and the resultant form of this building is a continuous wall that goes on an organic journey, enclosing various indoor and outdoor spaces along the way. The house is therefore secure, […]
The Arch for Arch stands as a tribute to the human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, affectionately known as “Arch” by fellow South Africans, as well as a monument to peace and democracy. Designed by Snøhetta and Johannesburg-based Local Studio, in collaboration with Design Indaba, the engineers at Hatch, and […]
This is an alteration to a famous art deco apartment building in Hillbrow, called Mimosa Square, which had been hijacked for 15 years and was the first urban renewal project undertaken by the client, Urban Task Force – a property development firm. The new structure places the public service centre at the top of the […]
House M consists of five bedrooms, living areas, an action court and a sukkah. It was inspired by Le Corbusier’s Maison Blanche, which he built for his parents in 1912. It makes use of modernist archetypes combined with traditional elements and was built around the needs of an Orthodox Jewish family. This includes the necessity […]
Braamfontein Gate is the conversion of the formed high-rise headquarters of the Total Oil Company into affordable rental housing. The development consists of 400 residential units, a rooftop event space, retail units, a coffee shop, a business centre, a gym, an action court and a swimming pool. The project is illustrative of the quote by […]
99 Juta is Local Studio’s most recently completed project, and involves the creation of custom studio and exhibition spaces for some of Johannesburg’s foremost product designers, most notably the firm Dokter and Misses. Apart from studios, the project also included the creation of a restaurant and bar at ground floor and a flexible event space […]
SPCNR stands for ‘Southpoint Corner’ and is a workplace development by the student housing company, Southpoint. The building consists of internal public areas, a roof garden, retail units and a restaurant. This is the renovation of a 1960s modernist office building designed by Silverman and Associates, previously known as Heerengracht. The building has historically housed […]
This project is the resurrection of four of the most important heritage buildings in the Johannesburg CBD, which had been owned by a large property fund and mothballed in the mid-1980s. The project creates 145 new, serviced office spaces aimed at young black advocates who require satellite office space close to the Central Gauteng High […]
Fulham Heights is one of the first projects to demonstrate the principals and guidelines of the Johannesburg Corridors of Freedom policy. The policy looks to promote mixed-use development and residential densification in neighbourhoods adjacent to the recently-completed bus-rapid transit (BRT) network. The building is a conversion of an old corner shop, which was a Chinese […]
The Outreach Foundation currently provide a very impactful counselling service to migrants in Hillbrow, an area rife with crime and violence. Counselling facilities were previously scattered around the site and the new building will bring them together into one counselling centre. Facilities will include counselling rooms, a meeting room and a roof garden. This has […]
This is the pilot school in the African School for Excellence’s (ASE) inner-city schools programme, which looks to place small-scale, low-fee private schools in over 100 locations in the Johannesburg CBD over the next ten years. Naturally, very few commercial spaces in urban areas are entirely suitable for school purposes and the project is one […]
Westbury Pedestrian Bridge comprises a pedestrian bridge with access to a BRT station, an amphitheater and a park. This project forms part of a broader precinct plan, an NMT network, also conducted by Local Studio in the area. Initial research established that the on-grade crossing between Coronationville and Westbury was extremely dangerous for pedestrians, particularly […]
Situation East is a conversion of a former garment workers factory into residential apartments in Maboneng. Like many industrial buildings in this part of the city, the building is characterised by deep spaces and flimsy structural elements, making traditional apartment typologies and construction methodologies impossible. The design therefore called for innovative ways to bring natural […]
One of the few remaining structures from old Sophiatown, the AB Xuma House, is situated at the corner of Edward and Toby Streets. The house belonged to Dr Alfred Bitini Xuma, who was elected president of the African National Congress in 1940. In 2007, the City of Johannesburg acquired the Xuma House and signed an […]
The African School for Excellence (ASE) educational model was designed specifically to address the needs and challenges of African secondary school scholars that are eager to learn, but with barriers such as school funding and tuition costs keeping many of them from reaching their full potential. A construction firm had originally won the contract to […]
The Lutheran Church Outreach Foundation Community Centre is one of the first new social infrastructure projects to be built in Hillbrow since the 1970s. The project is situated within the broader Hillbrow Lutheran Church/Friedenskirche precinct, a site given to the Lutheran church by Paul Kruger at the turn of the century. The actual building site […]
The Hill Café is a steel restaurant pavillion built as a temporary structure on the foundations of a demolished lunatic asylum in Johannesburg’s historical Old Fort. The original building had been demolished to make way for a parade ground for the Transvaal Scottish Regiment. The design went through numerous iterations, all of which were rejected […]
