Fachang Village is located on the northeast of Zijin County, Heyuan City. Nowadays, a majority of the middle-aged people in the village have gone to work in the city, while the elderly and children have been left behind. Thus, these people have become the main users of the newly built community center.
The surrounding plots of the site are mostly covered by cottages and farmland. Meanwhile, a small river is flowing by on the southwest, with the Pond Banyue and an ancestral hall on its southern bank. There are two big trees within the site. The characteristics of the environment and the local craftsmanship have granted us a chance to utilize timber and brick as the main materials, and intervene in the site’s enhancement in a way that integrates with "nature". By cooperating with the locals, we are willing to build up a warm shelter for the left-behind elderly and children.
The main timber framework of the building consists of local pine wood to reduce the difficulty of construction. We have also regularized the cross-sectional dimensions of the beams and columns, and adapted mortise and tenon joints to connect the rods. The north-facing high window guarantees the natural lighting, and the 1.5-meter cantilever roof provides an open corridor space with coverage. In terms of the facade’s material, except for the partially protruding blue brick masonry on the outer wall of the first floor facing the village road on the north side, the rest are glass wood-frame door supplemented with wooden strip of diagonal pattern. The ground is paved with concrete masonry with oblique lattice structure, and the interior is filled with local pebbles and bonded with cement. The indoor and outdoor spaces are infiltrated, with a flexibility of its space division to tackle any uncertainty of future use requirements.
The new community center, together with the ancestral hall on the south side, will become a new public place for the left-behind people in the locality.