Yuet is currently doing her graduate studies of Architecture at the Royal College of Art in London. Growing up in Hong Kong, a highly urbanized, high speed, consumerist society where people believed form follows profit. Witnessing how, in international cities such as Hong Kong, climate change has somehow become a neglected topic, triggered Yuet to reflect on material flow and waste hierarchy essential for securing the earth's resources.
Ching Yuet Ma
My project looks at the Crystal Palace Park that intersects with five boroughs in South London. The site has laid barren since the original Crystal Palace (which was rebuilt from its original 1851 Great Exhibition site in Hyde Park) was destroyed by fire in 1936. Since then, there have been many abandoned attempts at resurrecting it and in more recent proposals by the local authority to sell part of the site to developers which have been fiercely resisted by the local community. My design proposal aimed at collating as much community feedback as possible and distil it into a design that helps develop a programmes that facilitates their needs, as well as potentially be able to be built, operated and sustained by the community.
The title of ADS5 is 'Joining, Binding and Completing', the words of Gottfried Semper who worked on the international pavilions within Crystal Palace whilst in London during the mid 19th century. He asked if the new materials and technologies of the Industrial Age would form a new architectural language that is representative of it?
My question therefore is whether the age of Climate Emergency and Community Engagement can combine to use new materials, technologies, methods of community working and construction that can form Semper's notion of new architecture for our age?
My design proposal aimed at collating as much community feedback as possible and distil it into a design that helps develop a programmes that facilitates their needs, as well as potentially be able to be built, operated and sustained by the community.
At first, my assessment of local community feedback shortlisted a desire and therefore programme for various cultural, educational and economical activities.
Roof Plan –
Under the open but covered space, there are multi-performance spaces for concerts and outdoor theatre and cinema. More exhibition spaces for the local artists and community. More cafes, food and craft market, and covered leisure space for all ages. There would be more employment opportunities for locals that are unemployed and underemployed.
Ground Plan –
In the rise of climate concerns, this proposal also wishes to be more sustainable and help the boroughs and the country to reduce the waste, increase the reuse, and eventually become an example of the doughnut economy, one where welfare and economy is sustainable.
Therefore, beyond the employment in operating the multifunctional performance spaces, galleries, cafe and market, the design provides an extra type of employment in a factory that makes bioplastic from fish wastes, sorting waste timber and metal.
Lower Ground Plan
This section cuts through the multi performance space. With 16m tall, it has the potential to hold concerts, outdoor theatre and cinema for the local community, as well as becoming a new ground for the existing and expanding local cultural organisations.
With the supplies of fish waste from the Jamaica and mixed-ethnicity neighbourhoods and dozens of fish pubs and restaurants, collecting 10kg of fish waste in a day sounds promising.
This could support the daily production of 23 little triangular bioplastic pillows. Which also means, in a week., one and a half vault would be able to be covered with bioplastic pillows. After a year, the spare bioplastic or pre assembled triangle frames could be sold to make the business a self sustaining economy.
The main structure is formed by post tensioned stone where they are cut in the quarries and assembled on site.
Here the ends of post tensioned rod expressing the mechanics of building construction – making evident the post tensioning that held together the stone arches. Being seen at human eye level is a way to celebrate honest expression of the structure.
The stone arches could be pre-erected on site when the community needs it.
The transitional phase could potentially form an interesting playground for children.
The pavers for the stairsteps and stage are using reclaimed bricks from the demolished sites around south London. This part could be jointly constructed by the local residents together.
These miniature spaces formed under the covered vault would serve the galleries and cafes. Their enclosure is made of recycled polycarbonate panels. Their lightweight and temporary nature allows flexible installation and therefore benefits the participatory building process.
Overall, the structural principle of the design is that the post-tensioned stone arches are cut elsewhere and assembled on site. The community assemble and build the small triangles when they need them. That way the building expands and contracts over time when different decisions for use are made by the community. The architecture is therefore reflective of a sustainable economy and democratic community engagement.