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Space, Place, Genius Loci -- Yap Jia Cherng 1001642857

  SPACE 
  PLACE  
 GENIUS LOCI 


 PLACE is an interesting term when it comes to architeture, especially when we put the term "place" and "space" together. They are many different definitions about both terms, and very often they are being compared and discuss about. 



CHRISTIAN NORBURG-SHULZ talk about "place" in the aspects of phenomenon of place, structure of place and spirit of place. He states that essense of place is made up of concrete things having material, structure, shape, texture and colour. These elements then refers to the activity that happen inside the space, the total of these is then verified as a "place".

E.Relph express "place" in the explanation of place and placelessness, basicaly he defines placelessness as homogenize places, which is cause by mass media and mass culture, or to say is not exclusively to the genius loci of a specific location. He sees contemporary society moving further and further away from place and deeper and deeper into placelessness, he then encourage generation after to find a way to transcend placelessness, to move beyond the homogenous spaces and create diverse, rich, and lived-in space that enriches experience and human lives.

KATHRYN MOORE sees place in a more rational matter. She did not totally disagree with the concept of designing space with genius loci or phenomenalogy of place, she states that what excites and convinces us is the function of our needs and purpose, rather than the recognition that a design accurately captures and expresses the essence of place. Literally what she mean is by totallt follow genius loci may limit the design.


PHENOMENOLOGY

From those discussions about "place", we can see that place is an evolution of space, where space need some elements to make it a place, those elements are feelings and memory towards the space. We can relate it to the phenomenolgy of place, where phenomenology of place talks about human experience, awareness and sensibility while being in a specific place. It is about the feeling depends on human lifestyle with every possible elements within the area including natural and man-made enviroment.


 ON-GOING DESIGN WORK 

This semester our main theme of design project is adaptive reuse, which is very important to address the phenomenon of the site in order to preserve it and birng it to a better level. Our brief is to preserve a 1956’s building into a public building with co-working space, commercial spaces and residential-studio that engage with the existing and future communities.

Key map

 BRIEF 

The location is seperated into four parcels by the two highways which is Jalan Loke Yew and Jalan Sungai Besi. Whithin four parcels they have each caracteristics, the one from the top left have aggressive night activities and schools, the one from the top righ have business area, the bottom right have idustrial areas, the bottom left, which is our main site is a less happening area with major of residential areas. My idea is to create a hotspot in our site to constantly atrract people to our parcel, I come out with an idea of turning the existing building into an artisan food hub which will promote non-industrialised food and constantly drag people to the building. In short, the intention is to create a pop-up eating area that will become a place to gather and connect people from outside and also inside.

 BUILDING 

Exterior facade

sidewalks 
courtyard



interior facade

courtyard view

courtyard view

 FEELING 

Our very first impression on the site came out with some keywords : quiet, isolated, not happening, dirty and so on, but although these nagative comments, we still admit that some of the elements is beautiful, such as the spiral staircase, the plantation on the balconies, especially the courtyard gives us a feeling that brought us back to old chinese style residential where the courtyard have different kind of interactuve activities, such as kids playing, old folks chatting, having a nice teatime, playing kungfu and much more, the feeling become much more stronger after Mr James ( tutor ) shared his memories during his childhood in this area.

 PROPOSAL 

The developmemnt stage is still in early progress, I came out with a sketch plan with brief idea of how the space is going to be arranged.
Ground floor plan
The ground floor consists of 3 food stalls on the left ( RED ), and handicraft shops on the right.
First floor plan
First floor consist of a cafe, a gathering area and mostly open sitting area. On the right, whcih is more private part, is the co-working space designed open rental for whom or any artist that wish to make handmade handicrafts or handmade foods and sell them in the courtyard, whcih is a freemarket.
Second floor plan
Second floor consits of more private sitting area which is located at the balcony. On the right is the 3 resi studios for the co-workers or travellers.

 INTENTION 

FACADE
I try to preserve the existing front and left facade the most because it contains most of the memories from the previous user of this building, it has the meaning to the elder generation as they can recall the activities they had done here and there with the significance of the facade, as E. Relph says " The essence of place lies largely in the unselfconscious intentionality that defines places as profound centres of human existence. " when they actually pass by this building again, I wish to remain their feeling and fragments of memories of the old times before they enter the adapted building. 

SPACE
The space planning of the existing building is so compact due to the need of the function currently, which is residential in top 2 floors and workshops on ground floor. The spacing is so tight and enclosed and cause that adjacent units and adjacent floors does not know each other. They have no concern of what is happening around, and behaviour of the residents especailly the chinese family is very protective to themselves because the feeling to them of this place is dangerous, when we interviewed them they answered. With the new programme, I try to propose a more open plan with open circulation, and between levels there are more open areas for people to have direct visual engagement, in order to encourage communication vertically and horizontally. With the communication engaged, I wish to create a more harmonious atmosphere and friendly feeling inward and outward of the building. 


Front facaade with existing balconies
Left facade with existing balconies
more open design on the 3 floors to encourage communication
COURTYARD
The courtyard I try to bring back the traditional chinese courtyart pupose, which is a common gathering area. I propose a freemarket in the courtyart, which sells handmade products majorly food and handicrafts by the co-workers. The main aim is to create a place where is not own by any of the units in the building, but is safe end eligible for everyone use, including visitors. 

 UPGRADE OF PROPOSAL 


Improved ground floor


Improved first floor
I further down detailed up my floor plans, changing some arragements, creating more double volume sitting area to encourage more visual connection between levels. In short, my main intention is to preserve and address the old memories and feelings of the place, and create a new place-baseed gathering place where people can have food, while giving a more lively space and friendly community to the society in and around the building. At last, I wish my design could make the non-happening existing building a more better "place", just like what Christian Norburg-Shulz mentioned " The existential purpose of architecture is therefore to make a site become a place, that is, to uncover the meanings potentialnally present in the given enviroment ." 

 IDEAS/PRECEDENT STUDY 







These are some ideas of the spaces I studied based on the communication in vertical levels and in horizontal planes. What I feel interesting in phenomenology of place of these studies is that through the creation of convenience of connection, a friendly feeling is being introduce at a space, and with the more aggression of connection, the more lively and richness a space will be, instead of deadly isolated cells in the existing building. This is the final goal i wish to reach in my next step of current design.


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