The town of Dannhauser has welcomed the completion of the R190-million Community Health Centre (CHC) which is providing much-needed quality health care for the residents.

The former mining town is situated in a remote area of KwaZulu-Natal and access to health care has always been difficult, until now.

The construction of the government-run project started in March 2012 and opened its doors to the community in April this year.

Built with a blend of Corobrik’s Roan Satin and Golden Wheat Travertine Corobrik face bricks and some 1.4 million NFP and NFX bricks, the single-storey facility will serve the community for generations to come.

“This is high quality infrastructure set to provide a great working environment with the benefits of low lifecycle maintenance costs on the public purse” says Allin Dangers Corobrik’s Director of Sales responsible for the territory.

“When one looks at what has been provided one can only but feel inspired.  The Department of Health and the design team have covered all the bases and the contractor has delivered.

“We are proud to be a part of this substantive end product and for the opportunity to contribute to its attractive facade that will surely stand the test of time”.

Reducing the monotony of monolithic walls

Wavell Chimango of Diverse Group of Independent Thinkers (DGIT) Architects said the Corobrik range was always the first choice.

“The Roan Satin and Golden Wheat Travertine provided us with a colour palette that we could use to detail and emphasise many areas externally, thereby providing facades that do not require excessive maintenance or repair over a long period of time.”

He explained that the brickwork was done in a way to create contrasting accents which reduced the monotony of monolithic walls constructed out of single brick colour.

“This broke up the facades into smaller elements that were visually appealing but had consistency in quality.”

The Roan Satin and Golden Wheat Travertine face bricks were used throughout the building which consists of a main building, mortuary, admin block, gate house, sub-station, residence for doctors and nurses as well as workshops.

The facility – which is situated just on the outskirts of Dannhauser to ensure accessibility for the community – provides a range of services, including dental care, counselling, surgery, mother care, skills and nutrition training as well as TB and Aids care, among others