Location
Pekan Bangi Lama, Selangor
The project calls for the design of a Neighbourhood Market and Food Court within a suburban neighbourhood. Students are required to provide full design proposals incorporating findings from site analysis and precedent studies. Students will generate narratives that respond to the environment and community within the given context and explore environmental poetics of building enclosure’s design solutions that reduce environmental impact utilizing various complex typologies of spatial organisations and a variety of passive strategies for sustainable design. The design should contribute to and merge harmoniously with environment and site and provide the best of spatial experiences in fostering a sense of community.
Neighborhood Market and Food Court
Semester 4, 2020
Final Project (Individual)
Project Brief
Neighborhood Market and Food Court
Rehumanizing Our Suburbs
The cities and suburbs of the now are built for pure efficiency, channeling people like robots from one place to another, neglecting the human experience. Roads are built mainly for the glass and steel boxes we fly past block after block in where the most humane contact is the glimpse of a driver in the car beside or a flash of a pedestrian before it all blurs out in the speed.
Housing developments are built in fenced up compartments with the only public space often tucked away superficially in the most unsightly corner just to meet the development requirements. The supermarkets are often purely a factory of food distribution, where people go in, get what they want and walk out, with the most interaction we have is usually just the cashier stating the price.
There is nothing wrong with all these, they are the tell tale signs of an modernizing community, but with such a lack of humanity in our design therein lies a need for a space where we can feel human again and it starts by putting the interest of self, humans and nature in mind.
The human nature is the core essence of what makes us human, which are the interest of self, the interest in humanity, and last but not least, "Biophillia" meaning the interest in living things. It is with the essence of all aspects that truly make us human.
People First.
First off, self interest. The vendors themselves want more customers to earn more money, while the customers want a more hygeinic and cheaper place to get their food.
As for human interest, the existing marketplace is empty most of the day as well as in the morning due to lack of business, and the based on the theory by Jahn Gehl, people go where people are. The most frequented places for meeting up are usually the ones where the customer has an established connection with the vendor and feel familiar with that space, such as in the old shophouses and 5 foot walkways. Interestingly as well, the top hang out spots for locals in town are usually under the shade of large trees, such as the "Mamak Bawah Pokok" on Jalan Bangi.
Thus the design was generated by framing the existing mature softscape and arranging the spaces to generate high foot traffic while considering the needs of the existing users to create a lively, humane space for everyone.
Wet Market
The original concrete counters were replaced with stainless steel counters and tiled floors and walls for ease of cleaning. Seatings were also placed in front of the stalls for customers to have casual conversations with the vendors or each other
Dry Market
Initially, Kak Isma had to come to the market at 4am every morning to set up stall. Therefore, movable storage a individual shop unit was designed for her to ease her business.
Non-
Halal
The Non Halal store was initially blocked off and customers could only enter from the back. The stall owner would constantly leave his stall to meet people. Thus, the new stall was designed with a enclosed frontage entry where people could walk infront of the stall without seeing or smelling the non halal products
Santan
Area
The santan processing area used to be mixed together with the retail area making it unhygienic. The new santan processing area is seperated and designed with ramps to slide the coconuts along the processing line until it reaches the dry market to be sold.
