urugi: a continuation

The project can be divided into three different sections: the influence, the foundation, and the outcome. The influence is from the Noka House, where materiality, spaces and activities, community, and management plans were explored. In the second section, the foundation, the idea of management plans and their differences (process, development, factors like people or what module of operating, etc.) has a large effect on the outcome, and possible reasons of why. The conclusion brought about is that the most efficient plan would be a mix between bottom-and-top (one with flakes of the other, not completely blended).

Following those two, the “outcome” is about creating a community space/bond, while being conscious of the nature at the same time. Villages are in a network to be dependent on each other. Houses can be demounted to build new structures such as infills or extensions, to accommodate inter-village people to stay over, strengthening bonds + dynamics. A communal space built interlocked between existing buildings; a space for creative works.

This last step focuses more on the notion of ‘design’ and ‘designer’ in a very mundane project like this: who are we as a designer, and what do we contribute? This project’s stance was that the villagers themselves create and build this, while as a designer, we just give tips and advice. But how much is that? How do we show it? Or do we not? Arguably, this project is similar to vernacular architecture (something by the people, for the people, local needs, availability of construction materials and reflecting local traditions), so is a designer (trained architects) needed? For this though, a small design detail is introduced. Since the materials need to be “re-demountable”, they shouldn’t have permanent fixtures - so things like tying and bracketing are essential. What if we turn those into our ‘design expression’? Just adding to something that is already needed; they don’t need to be screaming to the people that this is something a designer made, but can be implicitly felt/recognized once seen, also giving the new structures an identity. It may not be jarring that the structure is new, but because of the visible details (colored crosses, knots, brackets), you will know.