pottery cultural art centre

from Huey Chyi - Architectural Portfolio 2021

jalanstesen1

Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock, Kuala Lumpur

project brief: The project brief was to design a cultural experience centre that focuses on empowering the people’s appreciation of their own culture and environment.

about site: Kuala Lumpur is a culturally rich and diverse city that is widely visited by locals and tourists. It’s diversity in contemperary art scene and culture all began around the Klang River, when back in the days the river attracted merchants who trade basic provisions for tin miners to come and Kuala Lumpur began to grew from there.

This eventually contributes to the richness of the city in the contemporary art scene and architecture. Until 1986, Kuala Lumpur began to realise its potential in tourist industry.Today, its diversity and richness has attracted both locals and tourists. There are also resurgence of activities anchored by city galleries, exhibitions, wall paintings, etc. were also seen today as a part of the tourist experience.

project desc. : The river is known as the nucleus that drives the city into development, but what about the cultural impact of river? Has people started to forget about about the original use of river that contributes to the culture of Malaysia?

The river used to be a place to collect clay for pottery making and it used to be a form of identity to the culture of Malaysia. But the pottery making industry has begin to die down even until today, the industry is still struggling to survive.

Thus, the building aims to provide a platform for the potters to communicate and interact so that it creates a community of potters to bring back the dying art of Pottery making in Malaysia and to educate the community about pottery cultural art

The River

The river is known as the nucleus of the city that drives Kuala Lumpur into development. But people tend to forget the cultural values of river where it was used to be a place to collect clay for pottery making. But down the road, people are slowly neglecting about the cultural art of pottery making and eventually the industry is stuggling to survive till this very day.

4 Contact points on site

Our given site is sandwiched between 4 contact points each with different personality and human intensity. Thus it is crucial how the building responds to each needs.

Process of Pottery Making

The process of traditional pottery making can be described with the 4 elements of pottery making.

Clay is collected from river bank

Pottery Moulding Process

Water is added to soften the clay clay is air-dried after molding

Pots are put into kiln to be heated

By studying the process of pottery making, its language is being integrated into the language of the buidling. interms of spatial arrangements, materials, openess, etc.

Patches of clay are being overlapped over one another to form a verticle form of the vessel. Both the solids and the voids are being overlapped to form an upward structure the clay is being pinched to the side to form a void in between.

The building spatial arrangment is also arranged so that a vessel is created in between and the solid spaces are organised outwards to enclose a void on the inside.

Just like the star of a pot is not what was created, it is what it was created to hold. Thus, the main design approach is to emphasize on the use of voids as a vessel that connects both the users and the building. The permeability, openness and materiality of the building is considered to integrate the 4 elements of pottery making (earth, water, fire, air) into the language of the building.