Sci Bono Aquarium

Johannesburg

2022

Typology
Landscapes
Urbanism
Education
Heritage
Programme
Institutional
City
Johannesburg
Country
South Africa
Status
Competition
Awards
We won a competitive bid to turn a former cooling tower adjacent to the Sci Bono Centre in Newtown, Johannesburg into an aquarium. In an earlier iteration of the practice, The Cool Factory, we had been responsible for saving this piece of our industrial heritage from demolition and converted it into our studio.
The building was originally designed to be full of steam and falling water and stood in a large concrete tank of constantly recirculating water. Our proposal replaced the steam with fish and the recirculating tank with a recycling wetland responsible for keeping the water clean. The project was imagined as a demonstration of the water cycle as fundamental to life, and our need to ensure that natural systems are sustained. The presence of water in the city, along with established trees, would dray birdlife to the building, a gift to the visitors to the science museum and the inhabitants of the city.
Project Credits
Collaborators
Adam Oosthuizen
Consultants
wetland POOLS - Anthony Philbrick, Work Work - Michael Tymbios, Delf Consulting Engineers, Solomon Ntuli Associates
Contractor
Photographer