Dr Dawid Griessel ([n.d.]: online), a neurodevelopmental paediatrician and vice president of Autism South Africa, states that, in South Africa, one in a hundred children are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and 400 children are born with autism every year in the Free State alone. Although several classes have been developed at schools in Bloemfontein, such as Lettie Fouché and Martie du Plessis special schools, as well as classrooms set apart for autistic children at Willem Postma Primary School, the unfortunate truth is that there are no sufficient educational and research facilities to provide for the development of such special needs children in the Free State. During my research, I found that autism is caused by a disturbance of the brain’s development at an early age due to the “interaction between genes and the environment”, whereby an individual’s development of social and cognitive interaction is influenced by the surrounding environment (Griessel, [n.d.]: online). Because architecture to a large extent neglects its accountability when it comes to moulding such environments, which accommodate our disabled population, I propose designing a centre of research and education for autistic children in the urban setting of Bloemfontein, providing the opportunity of dialectic interaction between autists and the urban society. Due to the complexity of the disorder, the understanding of architecture should be analysed and re-approached in such a way that it reassembles a canvas to accommodate such unique and complex individuals. Not only does architecture have the ability to evoke our senses and emotions, but it also influences behaviour and perceptional indifference. Therefore, architecture has the responsibility of capturing and reassembling an abstracted experience into the coherent mind-body understanding of the autist within the surrounding environment.
EDUCATION AND RESEARCH AUTISM
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