Stone White 村民活动中心 by Minjie Si and Xianfeng Ye

Stone White 村民活动中心 by Minjie Si and Xianfeng Ye is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2022 A' Design Award 铜奖 in 建筑与结构设计 Competition Category.

铜建筑· 2022

Stone White 村民活动中心

by Minjie Si and Xianfeng Ye

Client: Vrap

A' Design Award 铜奖 Winner in 建筑 Category

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Verified Award Winner

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The Design

About Stone White 村民活动中心

社区活动中心选址位于村口的一座石屋遗址。设计的挑战是尽可能保留原有结构并安装新功能。场地保留了两棵现有的树木，围绕树木建造了一个钢管支撑的楼梯，通向一个新的平台，该平台也作为二楼的入口。该项目建于疫情期间，主要由当地人通过社区参与过程，采用低技术手段完成。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 铜奖

Stone White 村民活动中心是 A' Design Award 铜奖得主，这是授予以创造力、独创性和敏锐见长的杰出设计的极具声望的认可。铜奖得主是技艺娴熟、创意惊人的作品，印证了其设计师丰富的经验、想象力与机智。预计Stone White 村民活动中心将成为一件备受推崇、令人钦佩且被珍爱的物品，兼具显著的专业性与创新性。这件赢得 A' Design Award 铜奖的设计融入艺术、科学、设计和技术领域的最佳实践，并因注重细节而出类拔萃。Stone White 村民活动中心出色地满足需求，触动渴望，迷住情感，并吸引好奇心。

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: The activity center for villagers was built during epidemic time, mainly by the locals through community participatory process with low-tech methods. A balance is achieved between built and preserved, specificity and generality, immediacy and evolutionary instinct. The objective is to build open public infrastructure, by reusing the existing traces and imagining their future development. It's a matter of reading the richness of a specific context in order to plan new rurality, capable of stimulating both villagers and out comers.
Dimensions & Packaging: preserved stone wall with thickness of 400mm; light steel structure as main structure to strengthen the existing stone wall and support the new white house above, main column with the dimension of 100mm*100mm; steel tubes with different diameters 30mm,40mm and 50mm are used as an alternative supporting system for stairs and platform.
Tags: regeneration, rural design, stone, tree house, community center, light steel structure
Production Technology: preserved stone wall with thickness of 400mm; light steel structure as main structure to strengthen the existing stone wall and support the new white house above; steel tubes with different diameters 30mm,40mm and 50mm are used as an alternative supporting system for stairs and platform.
Design Challenge: It is difficult to calculate how much steel we need to use to strengthen the existing stone wall and it is difficult to calculate whether we have used enough metal tubes to support the stair and platform. Both the structure is informal, which can only be tested on the site by doing a mock-up. Intelligent reuse and demolishing of the stone wall is also a challenge.
Research: We are trying to achieve a delicate balance between strategy and form, built and preserved, rigor and freedom, specificity and generality, immediacy and evolutionary instinct. The objective is to build open public infrastructures, by reusing the existing traces and imagining their future development. In short, it's a matter of reading the richness of a specific context in order to plan rural culture buildings, capable of stimulating both villagers and out comers.
Inspiration: The activity center for villagers was arranged at the entrance of the community during the regeneration of Feiyue Village, calling for reusing the ruin site of a stone house. The design comes up with the challenge that how to intelligently preserve the original structure and build on the existing traces. A new light-structured white house therefore was designed to rise above the heavy stone walls. Two trees are kept on the site, embraced by steel-tube-supported stairs, give a guide to the new platform above the originals.
Project Duration: The design started in May 2019 and finished in November 2019 in Beijing. The construction of the project started in November 2019 and finished in October 2020 in Feiyue Village, Qichun County, Hubei Province.
Operation Flow: It was built during epidemic time, mainly built by the local villagers through a community participatory process with low-tech methods. Since few people can be found from outside for construction during that special time and same for the transportation of construction materials. Despite of essential light steel structure, we used the metal tubes with different diameters 30mm,40mm and 50mm as an alternative supporting system, which was one of the most economical materials and easy for handcraft.
Patents: Copyrights belong to Minjie Si, 2021
Team Members: Design Team: Minjie Si, Weixiong Jiang, Xue Li, Xuejiao Li, Xinfei Guo
Construction & Manage Team: Xianfeng Ye, Zulong Zheng
Image Credits: Image 1: Photographer Minjie Si, "Stone White" and the Vernacular Surroundings, 2021
Image 2: Photographer Minjie Si, Feiyue Village, 2021
Image 3: Photographer Minjie Si, Aerial View of "Stone White", 2021
Image 4: Photographer Minjie Si, White House above the Preserved Stone Wall, 2021
Image 5: Photographer Minjie Si, Tree Staris, 2021