4.155 Graduate Design Studio
Instructors:
Angelo Bucci
angelobucci@spbr.arq.br
Finn Geipel
fg@lin-a.com
Weijen Wang
wwang@arch.hku.hk
Units: 0-10-11
Level: H
Prerequisites: Permission of instructor
Angelo Bucci Section (PDF)
Finn Geipel Section (PDF)
Weijen Wang Section
Building the School in Sichun:
Earthquake Re-habitation
The Earthquake
On May 12th 2008, a devastating earthquake measured 8.0 Ms scale, with an epicenter ninety kilometers northwest of the city of Chengdu, hit the central and northern portion of the Sichun province, China. It took away ninety thousand people’s lives, causing forty millions of populations homeless, and damaging cities and villages covering area over one hundred thousand square kilo-meters. Among the magnitude of disasters, seven thousand school buildings had collapsed and nearly five thousand school children lost their lives.
Working with the government of Dujiangyan city near Chengdu in Sichun as well as donors from Beijing, this studio is to design and eventually to help building a school in the Urmei village of Dujiangyan city. It will also be a joint studio collaborating among three Universities: Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, Tsinghua University in Beijing and University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong. Joint field trip and design reviews will be arranged among the three Universities throughout the semester.
The School
“I think of school as an environment of spaces where it is good to learn. School began with a man under a tree who did not know he was a teacher discussing his realization with a few who did not know they were students….. Soon spaces were erected and the first school became. The establishment of school was inevitable because it was part of the desire of man. Our vast systems of education, now vested in institutions, stem from these little schools but the spirit of their beginning is now forgotten…..
The realization of what particularizes the domain of spaces good for school would
lead an institution of learning to challenge the architect to awareness of what school want to be which is the same as saying what is the form, School.”
-Louis Kahn: Form and Design
School should be considered the safest and almost a sacred place where parents send their children there for learning. The damages of schools caused by the earthquake not only left trauma to children and parents who lost their beloved, they also shake the very foundation of community’s trust toward the system of the institution. The reconstruction of a school after earthquake, provide us more than an opportunity to challenge the institutionalized educational system and exploring quality campus spaces. Most importantly, it could provides us a real opportunity to establish a process, a process that might be able to reconcile the wound and regain the trust from children and parents, rebuild the identity of a community, both physically and spiritually.
The Studio
The studio begins by asking: What is a school and what does it mean to children who are to spend years in the place exploring and growing up? What a classroom could accommodate for learning? How to shape the corridors, patios and lobbies so children could stroll or meet? How do they work as individual spaces and also as clusters for interaction, and how are they assembled together to make a whole? How do we build up a system for the campus that could sustain continuity and still be able to transform when facing challenges? What does a school mean to the community and why does it matter to the villagers who may have just lost their homes and are longing for an anchor?
The studio will also be architecturally grounded: What are the tectonic principles of the design and how are we going to explore its tactile quality? How are we able to work with the contour and building the site? What can we learn from the traditional constructions and their local materials, and how can we develop them into a sound tectonic system that will be able to sustain? What technology is available there and how can we transform it and push its potential to the limit?
Schedule and program
August 25 to 29
week 1: joint field trip and site visit to Chengdu, China
September 3 to October 3
week 2 to 6: site, program and schematic design
-First review (October 3)
October 6 to 31
week 7 to 10: design development
-Second review (October 31)
November 3 to 28
week 11 to 14: tectonic study and detail design
December 1 to10
week 15 to 16: presentation, final review and portfolio
-Final review (December 5 to 10)
