This is a significant South African National Park (SANParks) legacy tourism Infrastructure project funded by the National Department of Tourism (NDT) through its Tourism Infrastructure Development Fund in 2018.
The world-class and state-of-the-art interpretive centre, serves as an iconic tourist attraction modelled on the narrative interpretation of the paleotological, archeological and geological evidence found at the Golden Gate National Park.
Triggered by the marvellous discovery of dinosaur nests complete with hatching eggs revealed in a nearby road cutting, the centre will provide the ideal space to educate visitors and young learners about local prehistory, dinosaurs & many other attributes of the Golden Gate National Park. The Centre includes academic & student research facilities.
Located north-east of the land-locked kingdom of Lesotho and set in the rolling grassland and sandstone escarpment topography of Golden Gate, the interpretive centre is conceptualised as a building cut into the dramatic folding valley slopes, retained on one side with the grassland flowing onto the building and revealed on the other opening up to the spectacular water formed sandstone cliffs towering over the valley site.
The route through the building itself is framed as a journey through time and space, moving through a series of architectural volumes, opening, closing, selectively revealing and dramatizing the spatial experience.
The landscape project encapsulates the journey, the setting and the context.
The journey: A zig-zag pathway system negotiates the ascent from the point of arrival to the building entrance, various views and information is revealed en-route with pause and reflection stops. On entering, the pedestrian route continues through the internal spatial topography of the exhibition floors to the exit and returns through a flowing external pathway system incorporating outdoor exhibit areas, raised walkways and children’s spaces which validate the overall experience.
The botanical grassland theme is about minimalism, allowing the setting and background context to dominate. The cycle of seasonal variation is dramatic and thoroughly transforms the landscape, at once endlessly green in summer and sombrely brown in winter.
The dynamic forces of nature are as much evident in the existing context as they are in the dioramas of the prehistoric fantasy world to be provided within.