SADC Museum building design

Modern museum design

Positioned next to the SADC Headquarters building in Gaborone, the museum building design had little space available. Our design proposal was to raise the museum building above the parking lot, allowing the parking to function as before, while creating the 900m2 of new space. The guiding theme behind design concept was the unification of 16 different countries within one building. Each country was represented by one of the panels on the facade that interacts with the others and can form the outer shell only as part of the whole.

Architectural layouts

The ground floor only houses the reception and access to the elevators and staircase leading up. The whole building is raised 5m above the ground, leaving space for the existing parking. The first floor is destined for the temporary collections, containing the Information desk, the Temporary Exhibition spaces, the newspaper stands and toilets. The second floor houses the permanent collection: Founders’ Heritage and Collection of Books, Artefacts, Memorabilia, Regalia, Movies and Works of Art. It also includes an auditorium, book shops and another set of toilets. The roof floor currently would house a open air seating area or coffee shop. The internal comfort of the users will be carefully studied and catered to, such as individual thermal comfort, noise levels, glare and lighting control, ventilation, etc.