... he was the first ever to set foot upon the lonely beach. What had lured him from the known dangers of the forest into the unknown and therefore more terrible dangers of this new element. ...
Transience, 1949
Arthur C. Clarke
Transience of Light, Transience of Life
The Transience of Life; the beauty of passing something to another. All activities of our daily living can be wonderful by sharing and learning, by passing and discovering. The Civic Centre of the Isola-Garibaldi neighborhood encourages citizen to share and to learn with own wonder and curiosity in the very realm of expressive ambience.
The seasonal light in different specific times carve out The Civic Centre, creating an irregular shapes of buildings and public corridors for neighborhood to enjoy their daily lives in the Isola, Milan.
Passing Something Known & Discovering The New Wonder
“Transient Area”; a splashed public corridors, a neighborhood hall and a natural shortcuts for commuter and public to use as a part of their everyday lives. In this area, The Civic Centre gather maximum seasonal and natural Daylight by carving out the buildings. An awkward shapes of public corridors serve different-experienced pedestrians and generate natural breakout spaces for the centre. These allow public to appreciated the beauty of changing states; from one to another and others, by passing something known and discovering the new wonder.
Discrete shapes of houses and different volume of spaces, dissimilar ambiences and activities,
vibrant contrast colours and fresh noises, original materials and a new group of people, separated events and linked corridors, and bright natural light and silhouette multi-shadows on different surfaces. All these components would fulfill The Civic Centre; The Transience of Citizen’s Life.
Sharing Dynamic Activity & Learning Different Events
The Transient Area is expected to be filled with user of all ages and chill-out activities that are passively shared and learned by neighborhood. It is not only to provide an inside plausible interrelationship; between people and people doing different activities, but also to connect outside to inside, as every activity occur inside would allure people who pass by and welcome to join vibrant ambience of The Centre.
Hight Flexibility & Maximum Adaptability
The Civic Centre has unique silhouette houses which influenced from orchestrating natural lights during design process, causes dynamic character of light and shadow. Each individual house accommodates specific required program. High flexibility and maximum adaptability are crucial for The Centre. To support growing neighborhood and propel dynamic culture in the future, Multipurpose and Responsive Area are designed to response to specific requirement; as a complex needs. As a result, citizen can transform an empty rooms into the worlds of their own and suit their needs. More importantly, The Civic Centre provide Responsive Area for public to use and share possible activities in the next future.
Curiosity & Motivation to Learn
A wonder of noises coming through windows; feel like daily market in the morning. Different noises with various volumes of different activities, deliberately, from the house that would attract the neighborhood and drive their curiosity. An internal surface generates energetic environment which expressed by vibrant colours; to enhance the ambience and motivate neighborhood.
To stimulate sharing and learning experiences, selected facades are bended out and opened partially with different angles; creating attractive eyelid windows for outside people to seek, and inside people to share. These voids vertically oriented toward only one direction, response to people’s natural curiosity. While vertical stripe Cor-Ten steel panels are being used to add harmonic material palette to surrounding.
Maximise Natural Light & Ventilation
Natural light provides the Civic Centre with full of energy and desirable. To consume energy as less as possible, maximum daylight and natural ventilation mechanism are being used. All unique houses are arranged to absorb maximum natural light by maximising wall surface. Each house is designed with high vaulted ceiling; creating an effective Stack Ventilation. An angulated walls are created to control and bring natural light in an appropriated volume. Different irregular shapes of houses generate splashed corridors which let natural light come through and make the Transient Area shine bright.
Minimise Carbon Footprint & Paperless Office System
The Civic Centre supports paperless office system to reduce the use of paper and minimise carbon footprint. All registration, information and booking document are converted into digital forms with cloud-based networking. In this way, people can register, check information and availability, including create a booking online. Along with installing ground source heat pump, storing rainwater and recycling grey water in an attic area, all are used for sustainability.
Competition Entry
Project Team: Titiwat Uboltham, Boonsiri Puakthongbai, Tharit Chansukon, Pruthiphon Buakaew