CASE STUDY

from VARSHA PORTFOLIO-1961739

by VARSHA B VARGHESE 1961739

PROBLEMS ON SITE AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

MAE-AN-GEO Village Community Center

PROPOSAL:

Although yeshwantpur is a crowded marketplace there is no space for the community to gather as a whole and take part in activities. There is only one school in the area for students from 1st std until 10th and no daycares to take care of the younger children while their parents are at work. It would also be beneficial to teach the people there about various business strategies or various means to use local material to build or to teach make them aware of health and sanitation. Moreover, there are a lot of empty plots being used as wastelands or garbage sites. In order to avoid this the idea of coming up with a community centre with a daycare has been introduced. This community centre could be used as a place for community gatherings, a place for organisations or individuals to conduct seminars or workshops and a place where the senior residents could come to relax every once in a while. The site is located centrally on the site making it easy for the people of the entire site to access and is not restricted to the people using the site.

List of activities in the community centre:

A community hall for gathering and other activities

A day care for the younger children

A small kitchen which can be used by the people during events

A recreational area for senior citizens along with a small nook for reading

Architects: Studio Zozo

Area : 198 m²

Location: Dangjin-Si, South Korea

Borrowing the concept of KAN .in HANOK (Korean traditional architecture), MAE-AN-GEO is a house with 22 modules with a size of 3m X 3m. 9 modules are used for senior citizen center, the rest 13 modules for the village community center. The village community center consists of a resident’s living room, kitchen, and a small bathroom with a mini-sauna and a small office for the village headman. Rooms for the elderly are designed to be cozy spaces, except for the narrow window for ventilation all faces are out of birch plywood. Through the glass tower, natural sunlight enters, and the elderly can enjoy the sky view from the inside. The Resident’s living room is a space everyone can stop by and use like a café, differentiated from rooms for the elderly, designed with a transparent glass facade. When there is an important village meeting, the entrance and revolving wall of the resident’s living room are closed so that the elderly can use the senior citizen’s space independently without being disturbed. A slightly floating building and 3 inner courtyards are designed for eco-friendly ventilation. The external electric blinds on the glass tower are controlled to block out the heat during the summer, but in wintertime, it allows to let in the sunlight to reduce the heating costs.

LEARNINGS:

Creating interchangeable spaces for community usage

Creating comfortable spaces (warm, cozy atmosphere with a non restrictive view to the environment

Usage of floating buildings for ventilation

Yunzhai Village Community Activity Center

Architects: SUP Atelier, THAD

Area : 635 m²

Location: Changheng, China

The village’s entrance, where several villages are connected, was selected as the site, so that the community center can benefit more than Changyuan Village itself, serving as a public activity space with the cohesiveness and unity of traditional clusters.

The enclosed interior spaces, the exterior courtyards and the roof platform are connected with multi travelling routes and managed separately, so that during periods when interior spaces are closed, visitors can still enjoy the multi-dimensional exterior garden at any time of the day, thus saving operation and maintenance costs while maximizing the utility of available spaces. The red-brick masonry techniques and metal processing techniques applied to the project are locally-based and reliable.

LEARNINGS: roof platform connected with multi travelling routes enables users to use the space to be around the multi dimensional exterior garden, even when the interior spaces are closed Locally sourced material

The first floor has an activity center, to conduct seminars and other activities, and a recreational area for the older citizens of the site who do nat have a space to gather and relax otherwise.

The ground floor is above a stilt parking for the vehicles entering the community center. The user enters the building and is direted to a loby, adjacent to a daycare, placed at the ground floor to elimate any disturbance caused to other activities on the upper floors

There is a school adjacent to the site, hence a library is provided in the second floor to allow the students to access books and other materials for studying.