Kunming Shi, Yunnan, China, 2014.
Authors : The University of Hong Kong, Olivier Ottevaere and John Lin.
Located in Yunnan Province (China) in the village of Shuanghe, this realization is a part of the international assistance after the earthquake in September 2012.
In a village practically destroyed by the earthquake, after emergency campement, came time to a more sustainable building, more airy.
The local government decided to build a large central square, serving as a memorial to the tragedy. This space is limited on one side by an imposing concrete retaining wall separating two parts of the village.
However, considered too vast, too empty, an idea germinated from an external sponsor, Hong Kong University, decided to build, and finance a public library to be also a community center office. The building clings to the retaining wall without encroaching on public space, while creating a slide ramp that connects the two levels separated by a concrete wall.
This is both a project of emergency; a project of a lack of resources in a region in reconstruction, but whose cultural needs are urgent, and a project to allow for self-construction without lifting means.
The result is both; a public facility, a toboggan footbridge, a community center, and an architectural signature of a specific place. Soon safety standards, danger is everywhere and we must live with, no insulation, the notion of comfort being in the service provided.
The result aims to basics, but an essential drawn, expressing the contribution of a humanity at the heart of a distressed area.