New Afrikaans University in Pretoria: Photos

The new Akademia campus, developed through a partnership between Solidarity and Kanton, is showing good progress.

Last week, Kanton posted a collection of photos to show the developments which are taking place, which include numerous large buildings.

This campus will cater for 5,000 full-time undergraduate students and 1,500 postgraduate students.

Four men’s and four women’s residences on the new Akademia campus will accommodate 1,500 students on campus.

The development includes office blocks, lecture halls, laboratories, an auditorium, dedicated research halls, a cafeteria, restaurants, and coffee shops.

There will also be a student centre, library, residences, staff accommodation and world-class sports facilities.

An experimental farm is also planned for the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Agriculture on the new site.

Kanton MD Henk Schalekamp explained that they are building a lifetime contribution for the Afrikaans community.

The project dates back to August 2019, when they signed a purchase agreement for the land, which is now the building site.

However, he explained that years before that, they had already begun searching for an ideal site, a large enough piece of land to establish a university.

“When we came upon this land, we knew this was the place, but it took us five years to get the rights and the environmental approvals in place,” he said.

“On 1 August 2024, together with Akademia, we launched this project. We had sufficient funds to start the earthworks in June 2025,” he said.

As part of the project, they moved 360,000 cubic metres of earth. On 12 January 2026, they started construction.

“Our goal is to hand it over to Akademia in October 2027 so that they can move in and open the university campus in 2028,” he said.

To date, Kanton has appointed about 35 subcontractor companies, each responsible for a different area.

Apart from the main construction of the new Akademia campus, they are busy with five direct projects on the site.

“We are also still working on designs, running in parallel with construction. That reflects the complexity of the project and the campus village we are building,” he said.

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Photos of the new Akademia campus construction

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