Contact Artefacts please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.	Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon		Benoni West Junior School Benoni, Gauteng Joseph Lockwood HALL: Architect

Date: 1939 Client: Transvaal Provincial Administration Department of Education Type: School Status: Unknown

A Pleasing Example of the Quad-Type School Plan It is with pleasure that we are able this month to publish a short account of the Benoni West Junior School, which has been designed for the Provincial Administration by Mr. J. Lockwood Hall. The school has been planned about two quadrangles, and is symmetrical, owing to its position in relation to the existing Benoni West Primary School, the sites of which are back to back. In plan the lay-out of the school is in the form of a rectangle providing two quadrangles each 41 feet 7 ½ inches [12,480m] by 53 feet [15,19m]. The quadrangles are surrounded by a roofed verandah 7 feet 9 inches [2,33m] wide, and separated from each other by two central classrooms 25 feet [7,5m] wide. It was not expedient to provide an assembly hall, and so the architect has separated the two central class-rooms with folding doors, which, when opened, allow these two rooms to be used for this purpose. Two of the noticeable advantages of the Quad-type school plan are, firstly, the ease of administration, and secondly, the avoidance of long and uninteresting corridors. There are ten classrooms, each fitted with lockers for the children, blackboards just above the floor level to enable the children to draw on them with ease, and lots of pinning space. These classrooms, each of which are 22 [6,6m] by 25 feet [7,5m] approximately, are arranged along the back and front of the quadrangles in groups of six and four respectively. In all classrooms good cross-ventilation and illumination are provided. The sides of the rectangle project into well-planned and spacious sections comprising cloakrooms, wash rooms, urinals and separately enclosed lavatories in a novel corridor arrangement. One section is reserved for boys and the other for girls and lead off the respective quadrangles behind brick-wall screens. There are two entrances to each of these facilities. Each of these entrances leads straight through a wash room on either side to an exit door opening into a wall-enclosed area housing bicycle stands. Two additional entrances are provided to each quadrangle at the ends of the verandahs. These doors open out on to small entrance porches approached by a flight of six steps. The exterior is of light brown iron spot facing bricks, with the windows and ironwork painted ivory. The interior ironwork and the doors and windows are painted blue. The lockers in classrooms are painted veld green with black tops, edges and handles. The floors of the classrooms are solid, covered with battleship lino and black grano borders, and the interior window sills are slate. The main entrance, centrally situated in the front facade, is through double steel glass panelled doors opening into a corridor 7 feet 6 inches [2,25m] wide. Off this corridor, which leads straight on to the verandah of the quadrangles, are the administrative apartments comprising the principal's office, the staff room, a stock room and a store room. Central heating is provided throughout, each room being warmed by means of rayrad panels 4 by 3 feet [1,2m x 0,9m], set flush in the walls. Simplicity is the key-note of the front facade, which consists of a plain brick frontage rising from a small splayed brick plinth and capped by bricks placed on edge. Full expression is therefore given to the windows, which provide a horizontal note in that they are contained in long sections of five windows of the hopper type. The exterior sills are of bricks placed on edge. Above each window is a series of small ventilation panels. On each side of the main entrance are smaller windows above a projection of the façade rising to the window sills. This serves as a flower-pot base. The roof is a well-vented corrugated iron lean-to around the quadrangles, hidden from the exterior with parapet walls. All storm water is carried from the quadrangles by means of covered concrete channels, so that there is no possibility of the children tripping on them. The building, which is costing £12,977 11s. 10d., [R26 000] has been well thought out and planned, and provides a new and pleasing school for the youngsters of Benoni West. An interesting comment on the planning of the Benoni West Junior School is provided by Dr. C. C. P. Anning, Medical Officer of Health, Benoni. "The Benoni West Junior School," states Dr. Anning, " provides an excellent example of a modern school built primarily as a place in which health can be created as well as knowledge gained. "Public health is concerned with increasing the happiness rate ' as well as decreasing the death rate. Happiness means health. Thank goodness that today we have begun to build schools in which general diffused light can and does shine, in which cleanliness and carefulness can be fully achieved and in which, in fact, buoyant health can be developed. "The motto of the Benoni Town Council health department is ‘Through education to health.' In the Benoni West Junior School education and health will march hand in hand." (PWSA May 1939 Vol II no 7:28-29).