weekend lodging

kek lok tong, ipoh project brief: Weekend Lodging denotes ‘A place where one escapes for relaxation, recreation and vacation for a short period of time.’ This Weekend Lodging should function as habitable architectural spaces to enable the activity associated with living, dining, showering, cooking, storage and such within the built up space of maximum 150 m2 . about site: Kek Lok Tong is a cave temple situated in the natural and picturesque area of Gunung Rapat in the south of Ipoh. The cave temple sits on a 12 acre site and was used as early as 1920 as a place of worship.before it became part of an iron mining site. When mining ceased it was dedicated again to religious purposes and opened to visitors in the 1970s. project desc. : A weekend lodging that plays with the availability of space to the public, and privacy of space, given its unique location of a private building placed admist a public park.

Next to the cave temple is a garden where our site is located. The garden includes gazebos and a reflexology path that attracts more senior aged retirees from around the neighbourhood to spend time on leisure activities together such as chess or just to chit-chat.

Taman Indah Jaya Project Study

When the project brief were being handed down to us, the first question that i started asking myself is ---- “How can a private lodging be in a middle of a public park?” kek lok tong site

This public park is mostly visited by senior aged retirees from surrounding neighbourhood to gather and conduct social activities such as chess, Qi Gong, Pa Kua, or just exercising as a past time acitivity. It has become their gathering spot and even the furnitures, such as the table in the gazebos were personalised with chess chekered box carved ontop.

By studying their daily activities, I begin to realise how they have orientated their own social bubble between Private, Semi Private, and Public.

The gazebos are a personalised space by a group of elderlys that gathers almost daily to socialise. It can be also put as the gazebo being their “territory” as any other people who uses the gazebo when they are around, will be seen as “odd” . Thus, they have expended their own social bubble to the extend of their own friend, therefore considering the gazebo as a “private” space.

Public

On the contrary, the benches that were placed outside and further away from the gazebo were mostly used by people that came alone, or people who are not too familiar with the environment around them. For example, couples, tourists, and families.

Open Space

Open spaces are a converging point between private and public spaces by bluring the boundary between them. The open space between the gazebo and the benches were used as an area where activities such as Qi Gong and Tai Chi were being carried out. It is sometime also a children’s playground. This open space allows for an outspill of activities between the gazebo, and the public benches

By studying their daily activities, I realised that the locals especially has a great attachment to the site, as their daily lives and entertainments are anchored around the people that they meet at the park and what they do there. Therefore, I wanted the building to not just be a weekend lodging itself, I wanted this building to be able to give back to the community and not make it seemed alienated from the site and the empathetic users that uses the site frequently.

I wanted this lodging to be able to be used by the public when the owners aren’t around. Thus, drawing from the study around the gazebo area, I realised that a great factor to determining the privacy and publicity of a space is the amount of visibility and exposure to the environment outside their own social bubble. Thus, I began to play with planes and how it affects the amount of exposure and visibility through it via the orientation, height materials, etc.

Use of different height of planes to lure and direct users

Different orientation of planes as a ‘compartment’ to define semi-spaces

Screen

Use of tall planes as screen to define a sense of privacy semester 5

With the study of the orientation, height and materiality of planes, I wanted to give back the ground floor to the community and to further enhance the livelihood of the park. Thus, I intended to have the main functional spaces of the buidling to only start on the first floor onwards so that the ground could be given back to the community and they will be able to use it as a part of the park.