3.1 Building Form and Function

3.1 Building Form and Function

By: Jorja Bourke

The Activity Centre of the Women’s House offers multiple configurations of space through pivoting walls that rotate 90 degrees to be closed or open. This enables the Activity centre to be one big space for large community meetings or to become three smaller spaces for focus group workshops. Likewise all three buildings offer adaptability and flexibility over time as the main structure that supports the roof stands alone, as the permanent single skin clay brick walls act as an envelope only, not a primary structural member. Thus the positioning of these permanent clay walls is strategic, so to passively keep the building cool, while leaving opportunity for the community to add or subtract the less permanent hand woven partitions into the envelope.

Through this one activity the project strives to engage women in decision making beyond the construction of the Women’s house, providing valuable skills in construction, sanitation and rainwater harvesting.

Figure 31 Activity Centre Spatial Configurations

Drawn by J.Bourke, (2021).