Page 26 - Thetha Issue 7

NEWS

plan exhibition space, a 100-seater
interactive teaching laboratory with
moveable desks, another 60-seater
digital space, an office for VIP guests
and presenters, another for the
facility manager, a small boardroom,
and other offices.
“This one-of-a-kind building
will offer an immersive experience
as three-dimensional images will
be projected onto the dome and
completely surround the viewer. It will
be a bit like the IMAX theatre – but
bigger and all around you,” enthused
Gouws, referring to the 15-metre
high-resolution images.
In addition, the 32 752m facility
2
2
(1 699m ground floor, 1 576m first
2
floor) will also become home to the
University Shop and a coffee shop that
will open out onto a large forecourt
looking over University Way.
The dome screen itself is
suspended inside a concrete outer
building shell.

Transformation of spaces
The Dome and its neighbour,
Newtonian, the iconic engineering
building across the road on University
Way, will also face onto what will
become a pedestrian boulevard for
the institution.
The road presently used by
vehicles to access South Campus
University will be downscaled to

What is on at
the Dome?
Film footage can be bought, a narrower internal road and be
hired, or produced, which means reimagined into a pedestrian walkway
everything from astronomy to linking the campuses together. The
the depths of the ocean. The boulevard will be a safe passage
University, however, intends for staff and students lined with
to produce its own screening indigenous trees and seating to
material. It will also have access become a social meeting node.
to some shared material as part Fences will between North and
of the SkySkan group. Ocean Sciences campuses will be
The screened content will be removed once the new entrance to
controlled by the presenter, who North Campus is completed as part of
will have different presentation the ongoing physical transformation
options. This, for example, allows of Nelson Mandela University.
interactive engagement by the The timeline for the latter is
presenter or online narrator, dependent upon funding.
or the conventional screening
of movies.

24 | Thetha Edition 7 | 2023