Sem 4 Final Project - Elderly Home
Village in a Forest
Home is more than just a place to spend one's life. Therefore, I began this project with a question: can a home be a place that maps the contours of human relationship?
This home was inspired by the traditional villages sheltered under a large tree. The "tree" becomes a prominent figure, a place of gathering. The tree is also a symbolic and spiritually comforting element. The tree as a protagonist of nature is often found in Indian and Chinese cultures. This fundamental idea of the tree as the centre for social gathering is abstracted into my creation of The Elder's Adobe. The architectural form of the home for the elderly seeks to evoke a "forestry" feeling, with layers of canopies that envelop the spaces below. It seeks to shelter, create beauty and to become a structure for social menagerie, to extend and enhance the bonds of existing communities, and to form a "village" within a "forest".
1. Crystallizing an existing node
The “block” begins as an “extension” of the existing religious and cultural neighbourhood.
2. Creating Volumes
The block envelopes the existing basketball and futsal court, creating privacy and contrast between the outer and inner sanctuaries. The
kampong (Malay for village) atmosphere of space sharing becomes more prominent on the inside.
3. Cutting and Shifting Spaces
The centre of the block is enlarged to a 12 x 12m cube communal space flanked by living areas on both sides. Hierachy is thus created, drawing people to the space naturally. The blocks that hoses the living spaces are shifted to minimize disturbance to the existing land usage.
4. Climatic Response
A diagonal cut is made through the shifted blocks, dividing it into wedges. The diagonal passage, in addition to being an elegant connection of the houses, maximises catchment of North easterly and South westerly monsoon winds. The western facade of the blocks is fitted with a layer of brise soleil that conceals the organic curves within. Leaving a surprise element.
5. Breathing Life
A curved funnel is carved through the ground floor of the shifted wedges, channeling attention and breathing life from the outer playground and court into the hearth of the block. Injecting lively elements from the site.
6. Voids
Voids are extracted from the shifted wedges to create living and activity spaces for the elderly. The ceilings and walls are curved, to create a feeling of being embraced, an embryonic memory within the subconscious of the elderly. These curves also aid in the stack ventilation - by perforating the ceilings with apertures, the passage of escape for warm air is created.
7. Airways
The leftover spaces formed by the voids are crafted into "breezeways" via the Bernoulli effect. Air is cooled as it is funneled through the carefully sized openings.
"Paper Lantern on Autumn Evening"
To Yuvarajan, Victoria, Haikal and Lek Yunn, who taught me the meaning of Home
Flash fiction by Yan