This building forms part of the multimillion rand expansions taking place at the medical school.

Architects are FGG.

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Nice renders...

Thanks dysan. I drive past this every morning atm, but unfortunately before any real progress starts I won't be so I won't be able to get you guys photos.

Why do SA architect renders always have to have luxuary cars no matter what they are depicting. What student drives a Merc C class, Audi Q7, Audi TT, Landrover freelander, Lexus and Crysller?

half decent building though is this at Howard collage?

Cos these students all have money :p..You'd be surprised at some of the vehicles varsity students drive.

Oh, and nah, its not at Howard College, its at the medical school down the road, next to King Edward hospital.

Don't this is a majot centre for world aids research with a lot of very important people working there, so there would be many wealthy folk. But yes its a rendering thing we see a lot over here, but then again high level cars are a far higher percentage of the cars on the road here than most countries

Thanks for posting this, Mike.

This is the new Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute which will house the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB and HIV (K-RITH). For those of you who do not know, the Howard Hughes Foundation is the largest private sponsor of health research in the US, after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The sponsorship of this institute is very significant as it marks the first time the Howard Hughes Foundation has invested in infrastructure outside of the US (it is spending $70m on building this institute and on TB research over the next 10 years). This institute will mark a major shift in basic TB research in SA, which has primarily concentrated in the Western Cape, when, by right, given the high TB burden in KZN, it should be centred here. When completed, it will comparable to the best in the world and house Africa's leading TB laboratories.

Re: fancy cars in the render - well, for one, students don't park on the main med school campus. Well, not in that section, anyway. That parking will be reserved for staff/faculty/guests. Thus, you could have several fancy cars parked there (you can find a few on any given day, actually).

Following a global search, K-RITH will be headed by an world-renowned American TB expert. A global call to attract top scientists to staff the institute has already gone out so expect lots of expats to move to Durbs because of this new initiative.

Piling has commenced and construction is expected to be complete by late 2012/2013

Awesome to hear dude...

Nice to see people putting the money in the places its really needed.

Thanks for the detailed explantion, sounds like a fantaastic development. Aren't there a few other buildings planned or currently underconstruction?

thought King Eward was going to be demolished once the Hospital in cato manor was complete (cant remember the name)?

Goodness...it seems everything is named after Nelson Mandela these days.

thought King Eward was going to be demolished once the Hospital in cato manor was complete (cant remember the name)?

Haven't heard of that. King Edward is supposed to be completely reconstructed from the ground up as one of the hospitals earmarked in the proposed hospital upgrading initiative.

Goodness...it seems everything is named after Nelson Mandela these days.

Actually, this is the only major place of note named after Madiba in Durbs. Anyway, he deserves it! :)

thought King Eward was going to be demolished once the Hospital in cato manor was complete (cant remember the name)?

Albert Luthuli Hospital is a referral / specialist / tertiary hospital. It's not meant to replace any other hospital. In fact, it holds the record of the first paperless hospital in Africa and the Southern Hemisphere. It's like a hotel when you enter it. That's what you get when you have an optimal public-private mix (state-owned, private sector managed).

Thanks for the detailed explantion, sounds like a fantaastic development. Aren't there a few other buildings planned or currently underconstruction?

The old MRC Building has been totally demolished to make for this. Impala House, which housed the Dean of Med School and some of its admin, has been demolished for the multi-level car park, which is now complete and being used.

This development is designed to link seamlessly with the Doris Duke Medical Research Institute (funded by the same family that founded Duke University), which currently houses world-class HIV research facilties. Both insitutes will share a massive skylight atrium and coffee shop etc. This building will also link to the main Med School building, although it will not be integrated with it.

Ok cos I remember reading that Doris Duke was expanding? Saw some renders a year back?

Perhaps the Howard Hughes project came across as a Doris Duke expansion?

Goodness...it seems everything is named after Nelson Mandela these days.

The Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine was one of the first places in SA to be named after Madiba back in 2000, thus even before "Nelson Mandela Bay"...

Perhaps the Howard Hughes project came across as a Doris Duke expansion?

Nope the renders were very different and i clearly remember the name Doris Duke. Will do some digging.

Why do SA architect renders always have to have luxuary cars no matter what they are depicting. What student drives a Merc C class, Audi Q7, Audi TT, Landrover freelander, Lexus and Crysller?

half decent building though is this at Howard collage?

Have you been to SA recently? Every second car is that! lol but thats all Doctors and Lecturers parking. Students park on the road or take the bus.

Cool design....:okay:

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Guy this is a massively important facility and will be at the global forefront of TB and HIV research!


The KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH) is a truly novel initiative in global health. It began as a collaborative undertaking by the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute–with public sector support through LifeLabs, the biotechnology investment arm of the South African government–and represents a bold commitment to developing new research capacity to study tuberculosis and HIV in Durban.

The research building now under construction will create an important physical connection between the medical school and our research colleagues on the campus of the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, including the Doris Duke Medical Research Institute, the Centre for the AIDS programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA), and the HIV Pathogenesis Programme. This facility, slated for completion in 2012, will house exceptional basic and translational scientists recruited from Africa and throughout the world, scientists on a mission to improve global health, with a specific interest in TB and HIV. These researchers will be able to work in state-of-the-art facilities at the heart of the HIV and TB co-epidemics and to engage with superb collaborators elsewhere in South Africa and worldwide.




for more info visit http://www.k-rith.org/

To help tackle one of the world’s most difficult health challenges, the University of KwaZulu-Natal is partnering with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to build a state-of-the-art research facility at the epicentre of the TB and HIV epidemics. The KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH) is currently under construction in a prime location on the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine campus in Durban, near other major research centres and local hospitals.

The seven story, 4,000 sq. m. (40,000 sq. ft.) building will hold six to nine large scientific research groups working in both standard laboratories and specialised spaces, called biosafety level 3 (BSL3) facilities, that allow scientists to safely handle dangerous pathogens like TB. When completed, the building will house 600 sq. m. (6,000 sq. ft.) of BSL3 space, including small labs adjacent to each scientist’s research area and the entire 7th floor. Part of the building will also be dedicated to specialised labs that include equipment and space to work in K-RITH’s core research areas: microbiology, immunology, pharmacology, high-throughput biology, and clinical protocol development.

A large glass atrium will become a hub for the campus, physically connecting K-RITH, the medical school, and the Doris Duke Medical Research Institute buildings. Inside the K-RITH building, a meeting space will be available that can accommodate large events or be divided into smaller conference rooms. In addition. the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and the South African biotechnology organization LifeLab will have office space in the building.

Phase One of the construction has already been completed. Several existing buildings were demolished and utility lines to that area of campus were upgraded. A four-story parking garage was constructed and is now in use by medical school faculty and staff. In addition, several existing labs on the medical school campus have been renovated and upgraded to BSL3, so that K-RITH can jump into its research mission immediately and not wait for the building to be completed.

Phase Two is underway, and construction on the main building and atrium is progressing rapidly. Construction is expected to be completed in 2012.

R346m research centre to tackle TB, HIV

October 10 2012 at 12:00pm
By Leanne Jansen

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INLSA
A R346m research centre to tackle TB, HIV, has officially been opened at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine, in Durban.

Durban - The country was counting on the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB and HIV (K-Rith) to produce new drugs and a new generation of local scientists to arrest its high disease burden.

These were the sentiments of Health Minster Aaron Motsoaledi on Tuesday, speaking at the official opening of the eight-storey R346 million research centre, on the campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s (UKZN) Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine.

UKZN and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute are the research centre’s founding partners.

For emphasis, Motsoaledi cited a 2011 World Health Organisation report, which said the TB prevalence was 800 per 100 000 people, “accompanied by a high mortality rate”.

“South Africa is among 22 countries in the world responsible for 80 percent [of cases of TB] in the world,” Motsoaledi said.

Epicentre

Seventeen percent of KZN’s population was HIV-positive, and 80 percent of adults infected with TB also had HIV, according to statistics issued by K-Rith.

The province is frequently referred to as the epicentre of the pandemic.

Just over six years ago, an outbreak of XDR-TB (extensively drug-resistant TB) in Tugela Ferry killed 52 of 53 patients in a hospital there.

At the time there were only 347 cases of XDR-TB worldwide.

K-Rith’s mission is two-fold: to discover new tools in the treatment of the diseases in Durban and worldwide, and to train the next generation of TB and HIV research scientists.

Motsoaledi went on to say that the drugs now being used to treat TB were “old”.

The Mercury recently quoted K-Rith director Prof William Bishai as saying that no new drugs had been developed to treat the disease since 1967.

Also, for a long time, the country had been a destination for researchers from abroad, but the development of young scientists now had to be “fast tracked”.

“We do have [good scientists] but they are old already,” Motsoaledi teased.

He twice thanked the institute for its “generous contribution” to K-Rith.

UKZN vice-chancellor Prof Malegapuru Makgoba called K-Rith a “social conscience investment of the highest order”.

Professor Robert Tjian, president of the institute, said that K-Rith was its first research facility built outside of the US.

This was to fight the “twin scourges” of TB and HIV closest to the patients who needed it most.

Tjian added that K-Rith sought to yield better ways to diagnose, treat and manage the diseases. - The Mercury


http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/kwazulu-natal/r346m-research-centre-to-tackle-tb-hiv-1.1400171#.UHWMKRXMgXs

a very significant development and great to see it becoming operational

2 thumbs up for this - swanky, and much needed. I prey some good medical achievements will eminate from here!

NEW TB AND HIV RESEARCH INSTITUTE INSPIRES INNOVATION

Overview: Award-winning ceramic collage artist Jane du Rand is responsible for the art adorning the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH) building at UKZN’s Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine campus. Her work is a big part of what promises to turn the multi-million rand state-of-the-art international research facility into a new iconic symbol for Durban.

Medicinal indigenous plants, maybe. But tuberculosis mycobacteria, the HIV virus, blood cells and DNA *- who would think of these in terms of providing inspiration for art? Yet that’s exactly what Jane du Rand used as her conceptual palette for Durban’s newest iconic landmark building, the state-of-the-art KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH), a collaboration between US–based Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal, officially opened on the Nelson R. Mandela Medical School campus site on October 9 this year.

The award-winning mosaic/ceramic artist, an architect by profession who gave up her architectural practice 14 years ago to concentrate on making the ceramic collages she had started as a sideline four years previously, has an international portfolio of installations that has taken her round the world.

In 2003 du Rand won a contest calling for the artwork that now adorns the 18 foyer columns outside the then-new Constitutional Court building in Johannesburg. In 2004 she did the Sinikathemba Aids Wall mosaic/ceramic mural at McCord Hospital. For that project she trained a number of young HIV-positive men and women. Several of them enjoyed the work, showed talent - and continue to work with her at her Bellair studio.

‘We wanted to integrate art into the architecture at K-RITH,’ said Jeremy Hathorn, principle architect for the landmark R650 million project already positioning Durban as an international science and technology hub.

Hathorn, who is also a Director at FGG Architects on Problem Mhkize (Cowey Road), historically a practice with a specialty focus on hospitals went on to say that ‘we [the project team] wanted to imbue the building with a sense of spirit and in so doing, to convey a narrative about what the building represents, this being the pursuit of cures for tuberculosis and HIV.’

‘Our request was that Jane produce abstract, iconic representations of medical research,’ said Costa Criticos, K-RITH’s chief operating officer, who was responsible for briefing her.
‘We also requested a social development dimension - that she work with and train assistants.’ Once again du Rand drew people associated with the (erstwhile) Sinikathemba Project.

‘They wanted a representation of the [Watson-Crick] double helix structure of DNA going up the stairwell,’ said du Rand. K-RITH scientist Dr Adrie Steyn ‘gave me a long explanation on how, for accuracy, we had to link the colours,’ she added.

Besides that, her brief was ‘open - to allow the freedom of artistic interpretation,’ said Hathorn. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland, is one of the world’s largest private-funding organisations for biological and medical research and the second wealthiest philanthropic organisation in the US (after the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation). It was founded in 1953 by legendary aviation pioneer, industrialist and eccentric Howard Hughes, the subject of Martin Scorsese’s multiple Academy Award winning 2004 film, The Aviator.

Since inception the HMMI has identified leading scientists and supported their research. ‘They are very sought-after funders. They give generous research support to individuals. They pay salaries and rent spaces at universities. They operate like a university without walls,’ said Professor William ‘Bill’ Bishai, K-RITH’s Director and formerly Co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research in Baltimore, Maryland.

This HHMI’s flagship programme in biomedical research rests on the conviction that scientists of exceptional talent, commitment and imagination will make fundamental biological discoveries for the betterment of human health if they receive the resources, time, and freedom to pursue challenging questions.

‘Rarely does HHMI invest in bricks and mortar, or in institutions,’ said Bishai. Their only brick-and-mortar institute prior to K-RITH is Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, where the focus is neuroscience.

‘K-RITH is their first outside the US,’ said Bishai. HHMI chose South Africa because of its high burden of HIV and tuberculosis. ‘Scientifically there’s a strong reason to come here to study the human biology of HIV, TB and co-infection,’ said Bishai. Tuberculosis is a major cause of death for people living with HIV and AIDS. KwaZulu-Natal is also the epicentre of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).
The rates of tuberculosis are falling in North America and Europe. But worldwide, it is setting all-time record highs. ‘K-RITH is a tremendous opportunity to conduct research in a place where the disease under study is abundant,’ said Bishai.

The goal is that discoveries made in the heart of the TB and HIV epidemics will drive innovation to control the deadly diseases. In addition to its research mission, K-RITH is committed to expanding the TB and HIV research capabilities of scientists throughout Africa.

Professor Peter Agre, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, one of many distinguished international scientists, researchers and academics in Durban for K-RITH’s opening, described sub-Saharan Africa’s TB and HIV co-infection pandemic as potentially ‘the black death of Africa in the 21st Century’.

Without research - and without philanthropic contributions to it, in this case, HHMI’s - communities would be wiped out and Africa would likely lose all economic momentum. The four upper lab floors at K-RITH (which stands seven floors tall) will range from Biosafety Level 1 to Biosafety Level 3 (the top floor, believed to be the largest continuous Biosafety Level 3 laboratory in Africa), where all operators wear safety suits and breathing masks and state-of-the-art safety standards are the focus for handling of HIV and the bacteria that cause TB and drug-resistant TB.

‘I was initially asked to put forward a proposal for the facade of the multi-storied parking area that was built first,’ said du Rand. Later, she was shown other walls and spaces and asked for proposals. She set about researching images of cells, viruses - and healing plants. She found a lot of images were circular, ‘which inspired ideas for the rest of the work’ including the hugely colourful ‘healing Mandela’ she created for the floor space in the tower building foyer.

Du Rand starts by drawing out her proposed designs and working with the colours. All ceramics are subsequently hand-sculpted in clay, hand-glazed and fired. The mosaics, she buys on sheets and they are cut as required.

The ‘incredibly labor intensive’ work, she says, evolves from being representational - watercolour depictions of rooibos plants, the Madiba rose, aloes and the HIV virus, for example - into textured and interconnected patterns and shapes.

Her numerous projects around the world have included a casino floor in Chile, a railway station in New York State, a private home in San Tropez, a riverboat in Provence, and many more. She and her team were working on a wall for a restaurant for a new hotel in Guernsey when we visited her studio. It was a spin-off from work she did during the Oyster Box Hotel revamp — among myriad public and private spaces decorated with du Rand commissions around South Africa.

The K-RITH project fascinated her. ‘I know a fair amount about TB and HIV/Aids because of my initial involvement with Sinikathemba,’ she said. ‘One chap at my studio nearly died six years ago. He wasn’t on anti-retrovirals. The others got him onto a programme and he’s absolutely fine now, although he’s also had TB three times.

‘Everyone working for me is HIV-positive and they’ve all had TB. I know that every month they have to have a day to collect their medication and get tested. They don’t have to be at work every day because we understand. If someone is sick, we say “go and get better”.

‘And in fact my daughter got TB from her anti-TB injection.’ Du Preez is married to fellow architect Eerhard Huizinga. The couple have two children, Emily, 8, and Bernhard, 6.
‘For a long time, Emily didn’t gain weight or thrive. For her it wasn’t a coughing thing. She had no appetite and there were little nodules where the injection had gone in. Luckily it was eventually diagnosed. When she was eight months old, she had to go under anesthetic and a specialist removed the nodules. She went onto medication for six months and after that, she was fine.’

The work du Rand was able to do on the K-RITH project, through her own experiences with TB and HIV, and the work K-RITH is doing to find a cure, hold an extra-special place in her heart.

:applause::applause: awesome!

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and here is a video of the development

http://www.k-rith.org/node/309

It is a beautiful building to say the least actually....

I love driving past it.

That really is a lovely building. Would like to see more like this.

heres a heads up, they're planning another expantion which will include a major revamp of King Edward.

Thought king Edward was disappearing with the development of the new Cato manor medical complex for ukzn

major revamp of King Edward would be awesome...

Med School is starting to look really nice, but King Edward is looking old and tatty

The north end of medical school, near King George's water tower, is undergoing a major revamp / extention. Will look very good when done. Will try to post pics when I'm back in the country.