MJ | Architecture
Architectural Studio IV
Project 1: A Personal Space
In the first project, we were to design an outdoor personal space that is lightweight, flexible, simple and easy to operate by a client that is of the elderly and aged. Older people have gone through and still going through mental and physical changes that can be detrimental to their health. As such, the personal space aims to promote their inner personality and distinctiveness and allow them to carry out their daily activities in a much more private and comfortable manner.
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We made a visit to an elderly care center in Klang, known as the Little Sister's Home Of The Poor. Despite having such a name, the elderly care center is off a modern and interesting building that has been well designed with passive designs and careful thoughts for the elderly, by Ar. Edwin Yean. Within the large building boundary, we were to chose 1 out of 3 proposed sites for the personal space.
We managed to pick a client from the nursing home, Marita Chong, a quiet lady that sits by herself but once approached, she is willing to share about her life stories. As a group of 3, we managed to interview her and extract certain happening qualities that defines her and what she would love to as a personal space. As such, we came up with a light design that allows her to be private at that space yet being able to manipulate the privacy of the space at her own will although the design is still very open. With simple functional mechanisms, we managed to create movable table and chairs that adapt to her needs.
The light design is both pleasant to eyes and skin which creates a bright area without much glare. We hope to create a personal space for her that brings out her inner joy through her everyday activities.
Project 2: Center for the Elderly
The second project is a slight continuation of the first project, where the design is aimed towards the elderly community. In this project, we are to design a care center for the elderly where it mainly aims to promote activities during the day. However, it is not a nursing home and no living spaces are needed to be designed within the building other than for the caretakers.
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Our given site is off Old Klang Road in Taman Kanagapuram, where the site is a residential slotted in between a row small bungalows. The current site has 6 nursing homes in the area and thus, this care center aims to target the community of the residential area as well as those within the nursing homes. Taman Kanagapuram holds history to it as well as it the residential area was built in the 1960s, having most of the current residents now as an older community where most of the younger adults of their families have migrated to more urban areas of the city. The quiet site sits next to a busy highway with a large community of elderly people, waiting for life to pass by or to live each day to its most.
Upon visiting the site and its neighbouring context, I felt that the place had a great sense of warmth among the residents but those within the nearby nursing homes were lonely and they lack the strive to continue each day. As such, I made a point for the design to have the different elderly communities to be put together in the care center that I designed. The need for the warmth of the residents to touch the cold hearts of those in the nursing homes was how I started the design phase. At the same time, I focused on the integrating the building with its context as I needed the building to portray the sense of integration with the different communities. As such much respect was taken into consideration for adjacent buildings and how the care center reacts to them.
