Upper Lenticular

from Hot, Wet & Noisy: The Architecture of Our Own House

Kwame Nkrumah University Library (1953)

byWooJieKai&DoraP.Tedjosiswojo

In our current school of architecture, students are divided and are often isolated within their own years. The school places a heavy emphasis on moderation of student works, hence the architectural works produced are often similar to one another and lack experimentation and diversity.

The school is filled with teachers from different backgrounds and school of thought. They often have a preferred medium to work with within their studios, such as large scale 1:1 fabrication, digital fabrication, model making etc. The diversity should be embraced to allow the students to produce a body of work with great variety.

We propose the current studios to be transformed into workshop based studios. Students are not separated by their yearly division, but rather by the nature of their studios. Each floors of the school are fully developed into the differing mode of production. We believe that doing so will allow for better exchange of ideas between studios and also tutors and professors with common interests.

Ground Floor : Large scale analog fabrication studios

First Floor: Digitally enabled analog fabrication studios

Second Floor: Digital laboratory studios

Third Floor: Research studios and lecture theatre

Singapore has an average annual precipitation of 178mm/month, an average temperature of 27C and a relative annual humidity of 84%.The wind is predominantly runs in the Northeast and Southwest direction with an annual mean speed of 2m/s. Sandwiched between the high traffic volume of Clementi Road and noise producing engineering workshop, the site specifically requires us to mitigate noise while allowing for naturally ventilated spaces. Hence there exist the contradiction between enclosing and opening up the building. As a result of this, the need to selectively filter the elements of an urbanized tropical climate is looked into.

The School of Design and Environment 3 serves as the west entrance into the university campus, therefore the west facade should be representative of the school’s vision of being a leading architectural school in the equatorial context. The car parks and road in front of SDE 3 are then removed and redeveloped into an extensive garden with a water retention body that helps to cool the air that enters into the building. The garden also aims to reduce the urban heat island effect for its surrounding. The existing wall that retains Engineering Drive 2 towards 4 Architecture Drive is extended into an elevated topography of 2.5 meters. This landscape prevents direct noise from entering into the ground floor, allowing it to be developed into a naturally ventilated outdoor workshop deck.

The deep floor plan of the upper floors prevents optimal sunlight penetration. The core of the building, where the studios are currently located in, are often isolated from its surroundings. The main strategy for the floor plan proposal is to locate the air conditioned volumes along the plan in an alternating manner to create acoustic and pressure zones. The different pressure zones allow wind to penetrate through the building with the assistance of the tunnels that separates the enclosed volumes. As a result of this, an in-between space which acts as a buffer between the interior core of the building and the lush tropical exterior is introduced at the western and eastern perimeter of the building. This in-between spaces experience a filtered condition of the exterior (diffused noise, rain and sunlight) allowing the environment to be brought deeper into the building.

In order to further accentuate the garden in the first storey, we propose a facade that enwraps the upper volumes. It continues from the western surface, the ceiling of the first storey to the eastern face of the building. Although louvers are often used for sun shading while allowing for wind ventilation in the equatorial region, we are proposing an inverted louver facade that prioritize noise mitigation. Looking from Clementi Road, the facade appears to be entirely solid with several glass windows. However, similar to a lenticular print that has two different images, the facade is entirely porous when viewed from above, allowing light and wind to go into the building. The extension of the solid surfaces into the building act as light shelves that help to bring light deeper into the building. More glass windows are strategically located at the larger in between spaces of the upper floors in the western facade, allowing one to enjoy the garden beneath. Contrasting this, smaller glass windows are installed in the eastern side. The chevron pattern of the facade that gathers at every column allows for rainwater collection that can be stored under the building. The new facade provides the first layer of filtering which softens the harsh tropical climate as it enters the in-between spaces of SDE 3. Rotatable doors are installed at every tunnel to act as an extra layer of noise barrier on the western side of the buffer space. In the eastern side, movable door panels are designed along the column to allow for a quieter space during the time in which the workshop is operating. The northern facade is designed as a 2 meter deep balcony to bring in diffused light into the offices.

Images: facade and interior spaces.