Community

The trend of modernization and urbanization in  rural development inevitably requires the introduction of new types of functions. As multi-functional buildings with large space, the Internet conference center is one of them. Taking the commune auditorium and the vegetable greenhouse as the original form,  Shitang Village Project in Jiangning tries to reconstruct public buildings in a rural context. Efforts have been made to rapidly build a system through industrialization, bringing in the technology of pre-fabricated super slender column structure, selectively applying suitable technology to eliminate the existence of weakened and materialized buildings and  restoring the primitive feeling of rural villages, hence having conducted a rejuvenated construction practice in an extremely short construction period of time in rural villages.

Text by Hannah Van Breen. In Ouled Merzoug, a small earthen village near the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, a piece of land was offered by the community to the recently founded women’s association AFOM (Association des Femmes d’Ouled Merzoug). Within the postgraduate certificate Building Beyond Borders, organized by UHasselt SEE, the participants designed and built in close collaboration with local women and workers. The end result of this participatory process is a Women’s House: a meeting, working and learning place in the centre of the village. A place where women can share their crafts with the community and visitors. In this project, the limits of the sustainable buildings were challenged by maximizing the use of local and regenerative materials and the confrontation between traditional and contemporary building techniques.

A temporary structure that assumes the form of a striking landmark. Northshore Pavilion is an inclusive public space that bridges the site’s past and future. Designed and constructed in just 14 months, this project required quick, inventive thinking. Northshore is Queensland’s largest waterfront urban renewal project, spanning an area greater than Brisbane’s CBD. As the precinct’s steady transformation takes place, the Northshore Pavilion provides the public with a continual anchor to the area.

The site is located at the top of the mountain ridge, which the top has been cut off and flattened by the previous owner.The newly-built consits of 5 huts varying in size and height which recalls the former ridge top.

O’DonnellBrown has designed and built a prototype for an outdoor Community Classroom: an adaptable, demountable learning environment for schools and community groups, which employs a functional, rhythmic geometry and design. The entirely self-initiated project has been developed in parallel with the practice’s ongoing community and educational projects, as a resource to explore connections between people, places and learning.

Construction with earthen materials, as one of the oldest traditional technology, was widely employed all over China during the past thousands of years. According to the latest statistics, at least 60 million people in China are still living in various traditional rammed-earth dwellings, most of which are located in poor and rural regions. In recent decades, due to the fact that the earth-based technology is usually regarded as a “dangerous” tech and a symbol of “poverty” by dwellers and governments, an increasing number of rammed-earth dwellings have been abandoned and replaced by conventional constructions with concrete and fired-bricks. However, limited by the low level of economy, technology and education conditions, most of renewed concrete-brick-based dwellings have even worse performances in comfortability, anti-seismic capacity and sustainability.