A place-based design Artist Village
**text in italic font are quoted from the reflective test by Edward Relph
Dealing with the brief to design an adaptive-reuse concept artist village in Balik Pulau, I focus on place based design when it comes to phenomenology of place. Why place-based?
It comes back to the concept. Adaptive reuse.
Adaptive reuse is the process of repurposing buildings—old buildings that have outlived their original purposes—for different uses or functions while retaining their historic features. It is also a perfect way to revive a place and has a major role to play in the sustainable. but in the same time conserving the resources.
In short, adaptive reuse is you preserve the past, and you build your future without forgetting the historical, culture and identity of the place.
“A place is not just the “where” of something; it is the location plus everything that occupies that location seen as an integrated and meaningful phenomenon.”
A place is everything.
Instead of just considering about the immediate surrounding of the site (Audi Guest House), I looked into the identity of Kampung Perlis (where the site is located at) and Balik Pulau itself.
Questions on how we interpret and encounter the site come across your mind when we talk about place-based design.
What are the cultural legacies of the project’s stakeholders that seek expression through the materials and relationships we explore between building and land?
How might the forms of the landscape inspire and then in return inform emerging design solutions that are as fitting as they are timeless? How do my architecture adapt to the place?
With that, I started by immersing myself in the project's setting- its culture, history, surrounding land forms, existing vegetation in order to "tell the story" of the place and lastly I came out with a humble yet elegant design proposal, “just right” and “just belong” to the site.
"Although every place is unique, they are interconnected by a system of spatial interactions and transfers; they are part of a framework of circulation."
From what we studied, the building layout at Balik Pulau is mostly scattered except for those new developments. Balik Pulau is an agriculture land where plots of plantation and vegetation could be found. Inspired by the natural and cultural layout of Balik Pulau, the proposed layout of the artist village is also planned in a scattered form as if the spaces are part of framework of Kampung Perlis.
Place involves an integration of elements of nature and culture; “each place has its own order, its special ensemble, which distinguishes it from the next place.”
This clearly implies that every place is a unique entity.
Integrating with the nature of the site, where it is located at a windy coastal area, having a sloppy mountain in front of the site, tropical forest on the left of the site and two stream/drainage aligning to the right and rear part of the site, I brought in the stream as part of my design and taking the advantage of the tropical forest on the left as a cooling element and place for meditation for the artist.
As the artist, I proposed are the natural sculpture artist who are fond to stay close to the nature, I proposed the workspace to be aligned with the forest.
As I mentioned about the windy coastal area, I cope with it by enhancing natural ventilation in the spaces. I allow the wind to flow through the site by removing the first floor of the existing building at the north-east of the site.
Talking about the culture of the site, I realise that the residence in Balik Pulau prefer to travel by motorbike or bicycles as they could travel through the alley/shortcuts from one place to another. Thus, instead of providing lots of car park, I provide bicycle/motorcycle parking. Besides, as Balik Pulau is known for being the place of inspiration, where people from the cities and foreigners would come here and have a bicycle ride around Balik Pulau to experience the village’s peacefulness, I provide the bicycle link service, which remain the function of the Audi Guest House and support what Balik Pulau is known for.
On the other hand, I found that the people’s entertainment there is either fishing at the small stream, playing or chit-chatting at the spacious compound of their home or jogging at near the paddy fields’ alley.
Responding to such situation, I proposed to provide a proper workout park for the community and hammock area as a meeting space where kids could play. The stream is integrated into the site by converting it into a fishing area where proper fishing decking is provided. For the stream on the right, it is expanded into the site, its purpose it to gather the people with same interest, fishing, where the water tide is controlled and controlled amount of fish will be trapped there. With this, people would not have to consider where and when to fish. This idea came from site 2, Balik Kampung located at Kampung Jalan Baru where they have a designated place for the kids to catch the crab (shown in the image on the right).
Material wise, most houses there use plastered concrete blocks or woods as their construction material. Thus, without any hesitation, I choose raw concrete finishes and wood as the main façade finishes. Glass are incorporated into the gallery to create an hierarchy of the spaces without overtaking the existing structure (the two storey structure).
You might want to know the reason I remained the two storey steel and concrete structure. As mentioned, adaptive reuse conserve the resources and play a major role in sustainable. When concrete or brickwork is taken down, it automatically becomes a waste, but it is in the opposite case for wood, you could reuse the wood after you dismantled it. Hence, the largest existing concrete structure is remained and the wooden structure where the bedrooms were are proposed to be dismantled as the bedrooms are located at the worst location, the east and west side of the site, and of course, the bedrooms are relocated.
To conclude, this place-based design proposal just belongs to the site, it does not mean anything if the building is relocated to elsewhere because it tells the story of the site, Kampung Perlis and Balik Pulau.
