Sem 6 Final Project - Rumah Seni
Rumah Seni
This project begins with a philosophical enquiry - How can we feed a man, while fulfilling his body and spirit?
The law forbids the homeless to take shelter in public parks and the council implements the design of street furniture that discourages the homeless to lay their heads. But in this house, the homeless can be granted legal immunity from arrest and hence find a place to rest their body.
Of bricks, mortar and concrete
When the first man scoop his hand into the ground and shape the clay in his hand into a hand sized block of masonry. He stacked them one by one and an enclosure rises up from the ground. He call it a shelter, he borrowed something from earth to mould protection to his body, perhaps it is an allusion to his primal need to make a connection where he will eventually return to.
The building mass sinks into the ground, with gentle sloping of roof tapering to the ground exudes humbleness, sitting quietly at the site. But its material speaks of strength, a bold streak of concrete cuts through the massing, forming an axis framing the entrance of Central Market.
In a diverse and busy site, the building form and material has no allusion to any ethnicity or of dominant ethnic group, it exhibits modest yet progressive expression that responses to local climatic conditions and regional values. It is devoid of reference to race or religion.
Although the exterior has no outward glory, but its interior qualities are magnificent as how it portrays the inward quality of a person, more so than his outward appearance. Weaved by a series of streets and chunk of courtyards, its defragmented position is formed by the encounter of rigid temporal lines present on the site, and the spiritual axis of Qibla, both become one.
If you think of the building as a representation of a human body and if we likened that as the body of this homeless 'person', we will probably draw the conclusion that he would not want to draw attention to himself. Submerging the building will not overpower its neighbours, and these introverted sunken spaces are also metaphorically, a space for concentration and contemplation, screened away from the traffic and hustle bustle of the city life.
