120 Hours: Peek-a-Buyi!
The 2017 edition of the 120 Hours international architecture competition called for the design of a flexible support structure for a primary school in Buyi, rural China. My team's proposal consisted of a modular wood structure that could be easily maintained by the local community with the materials and tools available to them.
This is the proposal of a building with a strict structure and undefined interiors, flexible in its program as a canteen and library, as well as a venue for temporary appropriations of the local Buyi community.
The grid of pillars, spaced 1,50m amongst each other, allows the most diverse spacial configurations.
It can have no walls and function as a continuity of the school’s courtyard. In case of need, it can serve as a 100m2 enclosed area with a capacity for 216 sitted places, a cooking area and bookshelves stored above.
For most days, by taking advantage of the spacial flexibility of the proposed assemblage system, the building can acquire multiple compositions breaking the boundaries between canteen and library.
The structure is composed by permanent elements, the pillars, the roof and the floor, while the temporary elements are the wood boards: one used as table or combined to build a wall and another one used as a shelf or as a half- sized table.
The pillars have horizontal and vertical slots to insert the wooden boards. Furthermore, they have incorporated springs in order to hold the shelves at different heights. These elements allow inumerous combinations of functions, atmospheres and shapes.
