architecture portfolio
VICTOR KWOK SEONG TAN
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DESIGN STUDIO 2
pantai kerachut retreat
After creating a bay watch for the ranger (project 2), we are now needed to create something more complex. We are to design a retreat at Pantai Keracut, Penang, and this is an individual project, therefore making it more challenging. A retreat denotes ‘A place affording peace, quiet, privacy, security, etc’, where its occupants would reside for a short period of time. This retreat must function as a habitable architectural spaces to enable the activity associated with living, dining, cleansing, cooking, storage and such within the built up space of 150 square meter. The relationship between your design and the context is also important in making the retreat unique to its landscape and activity.
design concept
Upon playing around with conceptual models, I love one in particular because it gives a very strong sense of direction, a point, a goal. I love things with perspective. In this case, its a one point perspective that leads us to infinity and beyond. I believe this is an interesting yet simple concept to work on.
Therefore, upon working on my precedent study. I looked at works done by famous architects, one of which is Tadao Ando's Water Temple in Japan. I also looked at works that has a similar concept with my conceptuals, the Bunker 599 by Atelier de Lyon in Netherlands.
presentation boards
This retreat house is designed to be user specific, thus I'll start explaining with the ranger's character.
Character
The user of this retreat is a Coast Guard and he works at the Bay Watch alone. Being a person who enjoys working in the wilderness, we can safely assume that this person is one with the nature.
Location
Being said that the ranger works alone, I assume nobody actually likes being alone all the time. Thus I've located the retreat house at the camping zone of Pantai Kerachut. Being situated at the camp site, the ranger can enjoy the presence of hikers camping and having fun. Besides that, I would consider it being a strategic location. Being placed facing west, the ranger can enjoy a nice sun rise when waking up from bed and appreciate the magnificient sun set from the living room or the garden roof. Furthermore, knowing the law of land breeze and sea breeze, I've strategically positioned the bedroom at the back of the house so that the ranger can benefit from the land breeze and have a cozy night rest.
Concept
By extracting the fundemental concept from the conceptuals I've been working on, I've designed a retreat house with the idea of planes and mass. From the front view, one can see the strong 4 strong planes which I believe sets a character to the building itself. It is simple thus doesn't distroy the overall landscape of the beautiful rainforest. Being said that the ranger loves nature, the 2 vertical planes, which is actually a stairway, delivers a sense of direction as it points directly to the ocean, and leads up to the wonderful open roof garden where the ranger is able to adore Mother Nature around. With the turf room, it also helps to maintain greenery for the site. Besides that, the house is design totally in an open concept to embrace the nature around, therefore other than the roof garden, the house features huge sliding windows all over to welcome natural light and air ventilation. Number of doors are at its minimal as I believe that spatial organization is not determined by walls and doors but rather spatial planning, in this case, the ranger can still experience a nice transition of space without dividers. All in all, this retreat house is designed based on enhancing the engagement of one with Mother Nature and also provide a comfortable environment that wouldn't disturb both the user and the people around.
physical model
This project is by far (2013) one of the most challenging projects as it is an individual work and the time constraint is pushing us to our limits. But in a whole, we managed to pick up lots of skills and knowledge through the process of completing this task. One of which is definitely time management.
On top of that, we learned the notions of concepts, program and process in architectural design and also the notions of space, form and function in architectural design. We are now more aware of site specific design and the process of site analysis.