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A number of infrastructural facilities including a library, E-Cafe, Creative Zone, Vocational Training Centre, Cottage industry, Open Air Theatre, Regional Product Exhibition Centre and Permaculture Farm are to be set up in the property. All of these are intended for the use of the community members, primarily for the purposes of learning, skill development and income generation.
Site Development
One of the primary aims of Marga is to present the children of the village with opportunities to expand the horizons of thought, understanding and imagination. For this purpose we plan to set up a well stocked library in the property. The library is intended to cater to their academic needs as well as to foster their holistic development. This can enable them to overcome the limitations of their rural upbringing and the lack of access to learning environments and provide them with a fair chance to procure education and career related possibilities. The library is close to the pedestrian entrance, making it a more welcoming space to the people of the community. The library will house books across different genres for people of all age groups at the time of its opening and will have state of art seating arrangements and furnishing.
Library
This is a space for people to engage in conversations, play board games or learn musical instruments. This is envisioned as an open air area. This can vitalize the space and make it more playful and relaxing. The inclusion of such a space makes the property more inviting to the people of the community, especially children. Different board games as well as instruments and sports equipment will be made available for the use of the community in this area. This space also facilitates healthy interactions among children and the volunteers in a comforting manner, providing them with the chance to gain the right kind of exposure and to develop their language skills.
Creative Zone
An E-Cafe is designed to be situated close to the pedestrian entrance. This is to provide good quality wifi and access to computers. This can be used by the people of the community as well as by the volunteers living in the property to work online. There will be computers with high speed connectivity in the E-cafe and volunteers can also plug and use their personal laptops here. This can be particularly helpful to bridge the digital divide in the post- covid learning scenario where schooling is mostly done online. This also serves as the space to teach students to use computers.
E-Cafe
A Learning centre or seminar hall is to be set up. This is primarily for teaching and learning purposes. Any resourceful person who is willing to share his/her knowledge can make use of this space to convey that to interested people through this facility. Volunteers, travellers as well as the members of the community are welcome to teach as well as to listen to the talks held. This facility will be equipped with audio visual projectors and fine seating enabling the conduction of quality learning sessions, seminars and workshops. The learning centre will be open to the members of the community 24*7 and they can use it to do their work including home work, painting or art and craft.
Learning Center
Investing in the empowerment of women has a positive impact on the quality of life of the entire community. With this thought in mind we plan to set up a vocational training centre, primarily to give women skill training. Volunteers can provide vocational training to community members in this facility. After acquiring proficiency and required skills they will be given sufficient support to start their own cottage industry. Thus they can gain financial independence, kindle their self worth and embolden their voice.
Vocational training Center
The infrastructure to run cottage industries will be set up within the property for the benefit of the women of the community who acquired vocational training. This is to provide them with a safe and friendly space to engage in productive labour.
Cottage Industry
This is a fun space that screens both educational and recreational videos for the children and other members of the community. The language of films can be a powerful influence that can shape one’s worldview and give immense exposure. Being exposed to artful content helps foster creativity and imagination in the growing minds of the youth of the village. This can also serve to attract community members to the property, enabling them to make use of the other facilities provided.
Open air theatre
This is for showcasing and selling the products developed in the cottage industry. This structure includes an exhibition centre and a selling counter. This allows us to sell the products of the cottage industry without the involvement of a third party, maximising the income of the female entrepreneurs of the community.
Regional Product Exhibition Center
We will run a store in the property using products donated by people all over the world. New as well as used products will be accepted however the quality of the products will be examined and only satisfactory products would be given away. These products will be given to community members according to their requirements.
Pick up Store
Permaculture farming offers a way to produce food while working with nature rather than against it. It is a way of acquiring high yields in an environment friendly and sustainable manner. It places stress on using renewable resources over non-renewable ones, zero wastage and integrating the flora and fauna that are part of the ecosystem into the farming practice in a mutually beneficial way. Apart from developing an eco-friendly farming practice this farm also helps to generate the right kind of values in the children and youth of the community regarding conservation and sustainable living.
Permaculture Farm
A housing area will be provided within the property for those volunteering with Marge as well as for the staff. The volunteers will be given free food and accommodation. This space has a living and dining area as well as private rooms and dormitories. This will also contain a kitchen facility, accessible to the volunteers. A Kitchen garden will also be set up for the food requirements of the residents.
Apart from these structures there will also be a playground, security cabins, storage area, washrooms and an office block.
Staff and Volunteer Housing
The goal of the project is to create a community space for the local children & women in Nepal to ensure comfort and respond to the harsh weather condition. The design meets the standards of lighting, ventilation as well as sound insulation for the structures with sufficient function and learning spaces. The site is so divided to create – a library & office block, vocational training block, skill developmental centre, Staff/ Volunteer housing block and Permaculture farming area. The goal is to cater to the needs of students and staff while functioning as a demonstration site for locals and visitors.
The design language is in accordance with local architecture, well balanced but still stands out from the context. Simple and coherent volumes combine with highlight details such as colorful doors, pivot doors/ windows, craftsmanship on the walls along with the interesting hexagonal building blocks.
Why hexagonal structure? Considering the fact that the site falls under the Seismic Zone V, it was highly essential to ensure earthquake resistant structures. Considering structurally stable shapes, triangle is the most stable geometric shape. But its acute angles make it uncomfortable and futile for habitation. On using radial geometry, triangle frame can be transformed into a hexagon to be served as a primary building unit. Upon using symmetry, a hexagon can be mirrored along its side to share frame elements and increase stability with equal loads spread across multiple frames. Exploring and exploiting the versatility of hexagon, the buildings can be oriented freely on site meaning that any orientation is optimal as sun shading is equal on each side of the building.
Challenge & Prospect. One of the biggest difficulties is the lack of social cohesion, the lack of permanence due to various factors such as the economic needs, lack of response of basic needs, social expulsion, alcoholism, manipulation etc. Such projects are of vital importance, seeking to reverse the social, economic & rural/ urban instabilities. Such projects are of vital importance, seeking to reverse these instabilities, from the building and organized care of community needs, creating a platform built to articulate, from the personal to the institutional scale, encouraging the formation and proper use of institutions as the main representatives of the people in the community, and likewise, of needs and solutions.
These built platforms are intended to contain spaces that respond directly to the basic needs of the community germinating hope and offering developmental tools and this to become icons that creates a community identity, promoting the development of context by working together to build this building, learn new techniques of self-construction that can be used for their family-individual situations.
Insight into building planning. Keeping in mind every little challenge & prospect, the spaces were so created to maintain a correlation within each platform while keeping the nature of the platforms distinct and unique from one-another.
The project privileges an integrated approach to interactions between built-space and climatic- environmental conditions, based on considerations of sustainability and appropriateness. Upon analyzing various aspects and nature of the spaces such as usage, footfall, privacy, noise, movements, sun path and wind direction, the spatial zoning was developed. The site witnesses two separate entry points for pedestrian (mostly locals) and vehicular entry each. The warm and inviting spaces such as the library, e-lab and vocational training or learning centre has been placed closest to the pedestrian entry, in order to bring about awareness and encourage locals to avail it. The skill development centre or the cottage industry block, which is most likely to be used by local women of Nepal, is placed closer to the pedestrian entry yet in an intimate setting to create a safe, pleasant and comfortable space for women to use. Permaculture farming area, playground and OAT separates the housing block for volunteers and staff (private zone) from the public and semi-public areas of the site. The landscape and green that separates also helps maintaining an optimal acoustical level and bring about adequate privacy for the housing block.
The choice of building materials has been so made to practice a cement-free construction with locally-available sustainable materials. The use of local materials has been essential for the development of the project, due to the low budget, the transport of the materials form the city is not convenient and expensive. While working with locally-available materials shall contribute to the improvement of the local economy.
Bamboo has been proposed to be used as the structural element with stone foundation and bamboo with adobe cladding are to adorn the walls. This shall help in providing thermal insulation in the interiors, i.e., keeping the interiors cool during summers and warm during winters. The roofing is so designed to accommodate rain-water harvesting at site. As an architect, the aim of this project is to enthuse inputs from both students of architecture and related facilities. Students can dedicate their summers to being trained as architects and help to build communities and related facilities. This shall also allow students to develop their skills.
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VEHICLE ENTRY
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PEDESTRIAN ENTRY
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ROAD
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MAIN FOYER
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LIBRARY
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CREATIVE ZONE
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E-LAB
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OFFICE AREA
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WASHROOMS
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VOCATIONAL TRAINING HALL
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OPEN AIR THEATRE
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SKILL DEVELOPMENT CENTER
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REGIONAL PRODUCT EXHIBITION CENTER
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STORAGE AREA
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PERMACULTURE FARMING
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PLAYGROUND
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SECURITY CABINS
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STAFF & VOLUNTEER
HOUSING WITH KITCHEN & DINING SPACE FOR RESIDENTS
TOTAL SITE AREA = 27,381 sq.ft
TOTAL BUILT-UP AREA = 12,950 sq.ft
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