Jiehao Wang
Flow-volumes: An Architectural Gesture to Unify the Old and New
Taking the traditional Chinese village as a site and case study, this thesis proposes a new design approach to engaging the coexistence of old and new buildings within a single site.
In today's wave of increasing urbanization, the trend of constructing new buildings is often driven by speed and efficiency. Almost all new buildings are built on vacant land. To construct new buildings, many old buildings have been destroyed to create completely empty sites. This is certainly a simple and efficient way, but not all old buildings deserve to face the fate of being destroyed. The old buildings are not only the remnants of traditional architectural forms, but they also carry the memory of the people who lived in these places in former times.
Regarding social problems in the traditional Chinese village, one is that the old buildings have been destroyed to leave an empty space for new buildings. On the other hand, many young people have moved to large cities, and only the elderly are left alone in the village. Therefore, this thesis uses a Senior Activity Center program to provide a new solution not only for the old buildings in the site but also for the elderly people who live there.
To construct a new gesture on the site in a graphic way, the thesis takes two-dimensional lines as a point of departure. A form created by free lines crosses the existing buildings. It is then transformed into a three-dimensional volume through extrusion and other methods. In this way, the old architectural memory is preserved, and at the same time, the new space also provides additional functions to meet the needs of the new era.
The thesis leverages the spatial relationship and functional distribution between the old and new volumes. Introducing a new organizational and formal logic into the old community, the new flow volumes expand to create new circulation, residential areas, and public spaces by establishing new connections between the old buildings.