This apparently simple laboratory building in the industrial desert of Sasol Midlands in Sasolburg derives its form and constructional syntax from the need for a blast-proof facility with high degree of mechanical services and laboratory equipment.

Externally located columns act as buttresses and exposed stand up-beams beams and the roof slab become the devices of a brutalist aesthetic. The utter simplicity and directness of this project reminds that buildings can be as efficient and economical as a bicycle and a humble project a masterly design.

Despite its severe constraints and omissions to the original brief the merit of this project is has a sense of completeness.