The African Leadership Academy is on the cusp of opening its new Creative Commons, a critical project in our Campus Master Plan, which will help deliver on all three of our ALA2023 Strategy: Win in the Marketplace, Unleash the Network and be a Leading, Innovating, Learning School.
When fully completed, the Creative Commons at ALA will be made up of a renovated auditorium, five creative studios for dance, digital editing and recording, visual arts, choir and music practice, and an integrated outdoor area. The design of the space has been driven by input from the ALA community, inspiration from other venues and our architect’s renderings.
Renovations to the auditorium
Our existing auditorium is being transformed into a theatre capable of housing our expanded campus community and hosting live performances and talks from prominent members of the global community. The new building will have a deeper stage, a backstage area, new seating and finishes and more professional audio visual and IT capabilities than we have today. This will be an update to the capability of the current space which, with 300 seats, was designed only to accommodate lectures. An outdoor area will connect the Auditorium and Studio Spaces and create the feeling of a unified space. The expansion of the auditorium, the technology updates and the integration with the outdoor area will make it possible to open the space to the wider Johannesburg population, creating greater opportunity for engagement and making it easier to share lessons and learnings on campus far beyond the Academy’s wall.
The five new studio spaces
Five new studios will service dance, digital editing and recording, visual arts, choir, and music. The studio spaces will nurture creative expression by providing students with a venue to practice arts, something that represents an important opportunity for self-expression and deliberate practice. It will be a place where students, teachers and viewers all interact comfortably. These five studio spaces will be home to ALA’s young artists and improve their ability to connect with communities beyond our campus. The spaces are being developed partially from repurposed shipping containers demonstrating the Academy’s commitment to reuse, sustainability, and design innovation.
The Team Behind The Design
As the new Creative Commons rolls out, ALA will be shining the spotlight on the amazing architects, quantity surveyors, project managers and engineers behind the design and build of these new spaces.
The Creative Commons project is led by Mphethi Morojele and Sinethemba Buthelezi of MMA Design Studios, who also led the redesign of the Learning Commons on our campus.
