Palm’s Proposal: “Communal Living Center"

             

interior view of the model

The space inside was designed to provide maximum visual connection between each floor

Ladprao1 site is unique use of the shop houses, instead of a single living on the top floors and work downstairs like regular shop houses. The inhabitants are actually the workers of the nearby malls who rented a 4x4 room to use it as a “bedroom” and storage. This also combined with the fact that they also use the open-air food court called “Suan Pai” in the center of the site as a “dining room” and the neighboring fresh market as a “kitchen” or a “refrigerator”. Thus, this represent the idea of “manipulation” in which I’ve explored earlier in the installation project and defined as erotic. In simpler words, the typology of “shop house” in this site has been manipulated through the misuse of the inhabitants. The shop houses only symbolize the “bedrooms” for the workers while the actual living space for the inhabitants of the site becomes a fluid flexible blob, which constrict and expand due to different situations. More interestingly, is the pattern of how the workers who would have migrated into the city have to share their space with fellow workers from different parts of the country. Hence, there’s also a concept of overlapping, how they have to interact with one another and the ambiguity of public and private space and ultimately, the exchange of knowledge.

The proposal “Communal Living Center” derived directly from the context of the site by analyzing what is actually missing form the ideology of a house. “Living room” become a function which is still missing and the proposal hopes to create a large living room in which would provide a communal living space for the inhabitants while, at the same time connected to the already established function such as Suan Pai, which performs as the communal dining room.

However, a question is raised of what’s to put inside a living room, normally, a living room consisted of many functions, thus in the order to determine this, I’ve looked closer at the intended users which then proved to be the workers who had left their hometowns in the hope of finding jobs and earn money. Thus, I wanted them to always be reminded of who they are and be proud of their identities and therefore I decided to base the functions of each floor of the center on the regional activity of different region of Thailand.

For examples, the roof area is a miniature rice field and a garden, this is inspired by the Central plain region, where they’re well known for their agriculture. The 3^rd floor is a art & crafts space inspired by the North region where they’re well known for their beautiful art works. The 2^nd floor is a projection screen that is meant to be seen from the dining area of Suan Pai, this “screen” idea is inspired by the shadow puppets of the South region. Lastly, the ground floor is a music room , where people can come in to practice their skill or even perform for the people in the food court.

Despite appearing quite fragmented, these functions actually interrelated by the users, where in reality would have the freedom to do any activity that they’re interested in, thus, in a way, it forces people to interact and encourages an exchange of knowledge. Also all of these functions are related in Thai culture, we use materials from nature such as leather to craft them into art and when combined with music, a performance is created.

Mock up model: study of natural light inside the space

Mock up: testing the idea of shadow projection

simple mock up model: testing the materials

model 1:15

model 1:15

Diagram explaining the relations of the functions inside.

Rough Zoning diagram

Plan and exploded axon

axon showing different floors

Thus, through developments, I’m quite certain to say that this shop house fits quite well within the context of my site and hightlights my site’s unique quality. In terms of its “eroticness”  The “erotic” of this architecture is the fact that it reaches out to the community, when a performance is shown on the screen of the 2^nd floor, it projected out to the people on the food court. That is erotic to me; the ability for the architecture to expands out and includes others. Moreover, the functions in side also promote interaction of people and challenge the conformity between public and private space as it inherits the function of a public living room…

Palm’s site research: “Ladprao 1"

         

Ladprao 1 - Erotic Field Study 

Ladprao1 : Situated in the center of four large retails and shopping centers , the area became a hub for a more domestic, and simpler way of living in the center of urbanization. Nevertheless, this area hold the concept of manipulation and interaction quite strongly when I decided to investigate the site. First and foremost, due to its location, the typical ideology of shophouse; single family, living quarters up top, working space at the bottom is now gone. Instead, due to rapid urbanization of the area, there’s a large influx of people from rural areas that became the workers for the surrounding malls.

In fact, the majority of the inhabitants of these shophouses are the renters who rent a room and share the particular space with other strangers with similar faith. Ultimately, the shophouse became just a place for sleeping for him, the maximum use of the shophouse for him is a 4x4 bedroom. However, the site does provides a communal food court which serves almost as a “dining room” and a small fresh market, hence the “refrigerator” or “kitchen” for him. Thus, despite his minimal living existence he is actually part of this “large social carpet” (the neighborhood)  and thus, he shares his new home and interacts with strangers whom overtime becomes  his “family” of some sorts. Not only that through this “manipulation” leads to “interaction” of people, it also created an exchange, of regional cultures and experiences - to put it simply in reality it actually forms relationships.

EARLY CONCEPTUAL DIAGRAM: expressing the flexibility of the space and the manipulated way of occupying the shophouse. Also with the ephemerality of the space.

SUAN PAI: A communal dining space - a dining room of the community, not only where people would “interact” but also exchanges their regional cultures 

SHOPHOUSE MANIPULATION: The inhabitants of Ladprao1 used the shophouse differently from the ideal use of shophouses (live up top while work at the bottom), instead, the shophouse functions  only as  bedrooms and storages for multiple inhabitants.

INFLUX OF PEOPLE: Urbanization draws people from all over the country to the area, coursing the need for a different use of shophouses - birth of the shophouse renters.

The flows of goods, how they were being distributed in the area.

http://prezi.com/iull-mf_gjzd/ladprao1/?kw=view-iull-mf_gjzd&rc=ref-37786569

Palm's model behide the scenes

Research on joint systems

Possible joints for different positions 

The model when fully constructed...

After the show - every parts can be taken apart for storage and transportaton

Palm's shophouse research : Manipulation of Space

Shop houses are modular, usually made up out of 4x4 meter squares connecting to each other and are quite generic in terms of the structure with the system of beams and columns. However, due to this very basic system of construction, shop houses enables much manipulation of the spaces within, making it flexible as it can be modified to fit multiple living styles. A shop house that used to be a curtain shop would benefits from a high ceiling for hanging their products and displaying their goods, however when the shop is sold to a hair dresser, the addition of drop ceilings and mezzanine provides more storage spaces, along with the addition of bathrooms for the customers. Thus, not only the exterior such as the facades that can be modified or customized to fit with the program of the inhabitants, the ability for the interior spaces to be customized result in an efficient yet flexible lifestyle.

Generic Shophouse Study

Hair Salon (shophouse) Plan

Hair Salon (shophouse) Section and structures

Palm’s documentation and post-analysis on Whispering Wall

 - Overall, I am please with the outcome of the installation, I felt that it does convey the main idea and it did play with the curiosity and the ambiguity, observing my work when it was all installed, I certainly feel a draw inward to explore and investigate with the combination of the alluring lights and almost hypnotic sounds.  As a result I actually felt as if the wall is whispering, the candle effect was such a great choice as the light flashes almost in rhythm with the sound and the fabric which changes shape slightly when blew on by the wind teases us to touch, to interact and get intimate with the whole installation. 

- One of the biggest change in the actual installation is that I’ve changed from using paper to fabric and the main reason for this is purely functional, because paper could not withstand the night wind so I embarked on a new challenge of finding a new material and also a new way of creating a secure attachment that would enables the installation to look decent when nature strikes. I felt alright with the final result although I wished that the fabric would be thicker so that the candles wouldn’t be revealed as much but overall, they did perform well and the wind actually created a nice effect where the air would get trapped and the fabric would changes shape, as a result, it adds more variations to the lights which makes the whole installation came alive as well.

The audience reaction was good, they all participate, take turn to climb up the ladder to hear a particular sound that attracts them. I liked the way that the installation is self-explainatory, thus, the audience immediately know what to do. It was satisfying to see their reaction, some burst out in laughter while other tried to listen and make sense of the manipulated sounds that they were hearing, whatever the case , they were all getting “intimate” with the wall, touching it, put your ear next to it, without realizing it or not, hence the spirit of “erotic” in the installation.  One thing that I would improve is how can each sound capture an audience for longer as I felt that many of them should take their time to really think and try to make sense of this installation in terms of its concepts and relation to the idea of erotic. 

WHAT IS EROTIC? AND HOW IS IT EXPRESSED IN YOUR INSTALLATION?..

-  Erotic to me is a stimulation of feeling which sparks our desire, similar to mystery, which in its own subtle way, teases us making us curious and making us want to explore the unknown. That urge to investigate, to get involve with the unknown out of curiosity to satisfy the desire, which has been created through a stimulation of senses, is “erotic”. Through the process of investigating/exploration, one might interact with another in the order to perceive the information. When there is interaction, even a brief one, there is “intimacy” of some level, this intimacy could be physical contact or just a moment where feelings are shared and overlapped… this to me, is the definition of erotic. Erotic is also an inevitable part of human nature, which exists though in many cases, we tried to hide it as it is viewed as inappropriate.  The same idea is exemplified in my installation where the object that sparks curiosity and create the desire is just a recording of noises at lunchtime at faculty but undergoes some sort of transformation to lure in the audience. The unfamiliarity sparks the curiosity us, it urges us to investigate and explore. The audience found themselves walked closer to have a better listen, some touched the wall, some put their ear on to the wall in the order to satisfy their desire in knowing what it is. Thus as we can see, the installation create an unfamiliar territory in which us humans are curious about. With the desire of knowing, the installation lures us in to explore and through this investigation, there are interactions and ultimately intimacy created between the audience and installation, without knowing it or not…

Palm’s installation drawings: Whispering Wall

AXONOMETRIC DRAWING: The exploded details drawing shows how the installation is going to be installed. Basically the fabric is going to be hang down over the breeze blocks  (the fabric is preferred over paper due to the wind factor at night time) The fabric is 1.30m. in width and 4.00 in length (the site is 4.80 in width and the height is 3.50 m.) The artificial candles are placed in each block which had been chosen from the ergonomic positions from the furniture in front. The light emitted from the candles hide the sound emitting devices such as phones and mp3s in the back.

                          

This diagram shows the positions in which the audience could access each sound source from the provided furniture, although this is not an instruction, the audience is free to move the furniture around to fit his/her individual height. The size of the circles mark the volumes.

The way the furniture are arranged; the left side; the chair is the most common type, people shouldn’t feel hesitate to sit on a chair in a public space while as we move further to the right hand side, the furniture became less ordinary and more people would hesitate to “engage” and “interact” with the furniture in the order to access the sounds; which as we move further from the chair, the manipulated sounds that had been chosen transformed into something that is quite different from the original sounds.  

INTENDED EFFECT

CONTEXT: - The Whispering Wall, as the name suggested represent moments / memories / sounds that the wall witnessed and captured. Over all these years, the wall is just a wall... in this case, the wall is transformed into a living creature that is eager to interact, “whisper” to the audience.

- The choice of sounds recorded was also made so that it relates to the site itself. These sounds are mundane, and can be hear in everyday life such as the sounds of footsteps walking in the corridor, the sound of the panting of the soccer players or the sound of the soccer ball. All of these sounds occurred everyday but rarely does anyone pay much attention to it, just like the wall, it is also there everyday but many don’t seem to see its significance. 

- Manipulation of sound is turning something mundane into a more ambiguous stage. Through the process of changing the pitch and duration, it opens a world new range of interpretations and imaginations.  

VISITORS: - The visitors should be able to recognize the loudest sound as it’s the unaltered sound of the lunch environment. However, as the visitors move closer to the installation they should be able to experience different sounds that has been manipulated. It’s all depend on the visitors if they would be able to identify the sound after the manipulation;  some sounds like waves while other sounds resembles a frog’s croak. Ultimately, the visitors would engaged to the point of using the furniture provided as a tool to access the sound. Through this act of investigating the wall (touching, putting your ear close by) the visitors would unintentionally got “intimate” with the wall hence “erotic”. Moreover, the experience of the installation would differs from person to person due to each person’s capability to imagine and interpreted each sound.

Palm’s installation development: Whispering Wall

SITE ANALYSIS

“THE MIDDLE BREEZE BLOCKS"

 The breeze blocks at the football court is quite an interesting space architecturally. I’m fascinated with its ability to separate the space into two different spaces with different characters. The football court is open to the environment, often a place for the faculty activities and most of the time occupied by the male students playing soccer at lunch and after classes. While the corridor space represents a more preserved, quiet area. Activities do not occur here, it’s an area where people tend to walk pass without noticing much. This space seems female-like in the way that it is protected by the wall (breeze blocks) and that it hides under the building, covered from the elements. 

The breeze blocks form a physical boundary; a type of wall. However this wall does not physically block the view. The holes allow some vision, yet this vision is “manipulated” and “interrupted” by the intervals of the holes. Thus the vision seen through the holes, even though hadn’t actually manipulated, is undergoing some sort of alterations as you walk by and look at the other side through the holes.

GENERATING INSTALLATION IDEAS

- Before coming up with what I want to do exactly, I looked at the possibility of the site, its potential and its unique character.. in the order to select a specific area to develop further...

Here I was looking at an audience’s perspective, deciding if whether my audiences should be on what side, eventually I decided for my audience to be on the corridor since the audience can interact with the wall (installation) easier. Thus, these diagram is not what I decided to do at the final stage but they play an important role in informing and helped contributed to the final decision.

Here I looked at  another possibility of using this site for an installation; this idea was about creating a performance, where the performer goes through a transformation within the wall - I decided to not go with this idea later on as I originally wanted my installation to be quite interactive and more stimulative - so that each audience could have their own “experience” after the encounter.

CHANGE IN CONCEPT - DEVELOPMENT

After discussing with instructor, we agreed that it would be better for me to focus in one area but with a certain depth that would be adequate. Thus arises the concept of sound. Sound is all around us but we human rely more heavily on the site to the point that sometimes, some sounds in the environment are forgotten. The concept aims to reveal the unnoticed - making you realize what is already there... actually, this relates to the concept of “erotic” as well. In society, especially in Thailand, people do not want to admit and show “erotic” outwardly. But erotic doesn’t always have to be sexual, that is what’s overlooked in society. 

To begin, I want to look at the sounds in the environment of the area and start to strip them down, then they’re going to go through certain manipulations, to the point that the origin of each sound became ambiguous. With this ambiguity/mystery, curiosity should arises from the audience. This curiosity is the key in which will lead to investigation and resulting in intimacy.

ANALYZING THE SOUNDS OF THE AREA

Brain storming ideas of sounds and how these contexts can be played with... At the end I came out with four ways to manipulate a track that is separated into two main categories; pitch (high/low) and duration (short /long) 

This diagram is the simple sound diagram (first version), according to my first trial I wanted the original sound to be the “answers” by making the original unaltered tracks to be the quieter ones, where the audiences have to really listen, putting their ears next to the wall in the order to solve the mystery noises which were the louder manipulated tracks...

This diagram explain the previous idea, here the loudest sound was the manipulated tracks mixed together , while the most subtle were the original tracks - the concept of this idea was that the original sounds were like the “answers” in which when the audience interact and get intimate with the installation, he/she will get the answer...

***CHANGE*** : After a discussion with the instructor, I agree with his view that, perhaps this installation is not about finding out the truth. Ambiguity is powerful as seen in the work of the studied artists and perhaps it is also the strength of this installation. Thus the new theory is created; no longer that the answers are the most desire output but the mystery that allure the audience instead, therefore the loudest/most noticeable sound is actually the normal original / unaltered sounds mixed together, thus it stimulates the normal lunchtime environment of the site.

This new diagram shows the new theory / approach..  the loudest ones are the original unaltered sounds  (normal environment), where it does not take much effort in the order to achieve the desire effect. The most quiet ones ( those required more “interaction” with the installation in the order to get to ), hence, these noises are actually the main features and the most “desire” and “precious”in the installation. 

This diagram shows the possible positions that a human could come in contact with without too much difficulty with the use of some of the materials. -> This is important as it helped me plan the structure of the sound system that will allows for some interactions and the physical “intimacy” with the wall that I hope to create.

Sound Structure Diagram - new theory 

LIGHT EXPERIMENTATION 

Light is also a part of the installation even though the main actor would be the sound, the light would acts as the indicators, assisting the audience of where to listen - here I experimented with different materials with the chosen lighting option; the battery power candle...

- lighting combined with sound in a mock up model scale 1:1