Kumamoto Artpolis

role: architect

I was in the university team to join the Kumamoto Artpolis, an international design competition to design the “Spa Rehabilitation Annex with Home for All in Aso”, a rehabilitational space for senior people with recreational and sociable space for communnity in Aso. We proposed a new type of public space that engage people in various kind of activities and allow intimate conversations that bond people in the community together, to create a place where people can feel at home at “Home for All”.
location:
Aso, Japan
program:
Pulic Space
client:
Kumamoto Artpolis,
an international design competition
for students in asia
status:
completion 2014

Investigating Context

By investigating how people in our context spend their recreational time, we found out that highly sociable activities usually happened along the edge of the building on a space like a veranda which is where indoor meets outdoor space, under the shade but without walls, encouraging people to sit and begin to talk.
edge of building - nature
edge of building - water
edge of building - edge of building

Our Design

Our design is, therefore, an attempt to maximize the veranda-like space for sociable activities and at the same time encompasses the landscape creating the ready-to-use outdoor space for main activities. However, the small budget limited the size and length of the building. Therefore, we thinned the width to maximize the edge of the building and the consideration of wheelchairs space for senior users, was used to find the possible minimum width.
1.
programming the buildings
2.
thinning the buildings to its minimum width
3.
encompassing the landscape with the buildings
4.
defining landscape for activities
sociable activities happened along the edge of the bulidings
sociable activities happened along the edge of the bulidings and outdoor spaces between them define other activities
All outdoor spaces defined by the bulidings like courts are used for various types of activities such as sociable activities and relaixing garden based on the size and indoor activities.
diagram showing the usage of outdoor space

Gallery

section
all sizes of the buildings are designed based on the senior people
indoor and outdoor spaces are seamlessly integrated
Team:
Tadpol Rachatasumrit
Kitsupphat Na Lampang
Thanaphat Sangkharom
Paphop Kerdsup
Nathida Sornchumni
Advisor:
Asst. Prof Rachaporn Choochuey