PROJECT: DELISABATINI architetti
YEAR: 2022
NAME: Yeonsu-gu Youth Center
LOCATION: INCHEON-SI (S. KOREA)
CLIENT: Yeonsu-gu office, Incheon-Si, S. Korea
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The task of the project is the realization of an attractive building for the citizens and open, also visually, to the city; in fact, visibility and transparency characterize this project. The project represents and exalts the youthful atmosphere that pervades it. It takes into account their world, favoring the formation of a stimulating environment. The project Idea is a parallelepiped partly solid and partly transparent that, setting back from the main road, generates a pleasant square. This place, facing the new building, is a quiet and welcoming area. It is designed with green and trees and is equipped with seating. The volume of the Youth Center wraps a void space that houses a swimming pool and a multipurpose gym for residents. Therefore, this large central empty space that hosts the swimming pool and the gym becomes the core of the project, in which all Youth Center’s rooms overlook. To ensure maximum continuity and visual permeability toward the surrounding space and environments, the volume of the Youth Center loses its West side. In this way, the paving that characterizes the entire block and emphasizes the unitary and public character of the external space also extends into the building up to inside the swimming pool. It increases the physical and visual continuity between inside and outside. The Youth Center activities are concentrated into volumes hanging from the top, keeping the ground floor free. This design choice increases the public surface available of the ground floor for the benefit of users. The roof garden further extends the surface area of the center, providing a quiet and pleasant place at high altitude, where you can relax or organize events. There is a cafeteria that certainly facilitates its use.
Below the issues that guided the design of the Youth Center.
PERMEABILITY
The new building is clearly visible and recognizable, both from the street and between the Child Care Center and the Administrative welfare center. With its façade and its high porch it becomes a scenic backdrop of existing visual axis, that crosses the block. On the ground floor, the decorative flooring that characterizes the public space is a reinterpretation of that already built in the two adjacent buildings, thus ensuring a unitary intervention to the entire block. It extends to the entire project area, indifferently between the exterior and interior of the building, where swimming pool and a gym spaces show themselves in total continuity with the exterior. In addition, glass windows without frames that close ground floor of the building make it difficult to distinguish the inside from the outside. In fact, the design purpose is to keep the space of ground floor as free as possible, also visually, for the benefit of inhabitants. Also building morphology follows this idea in fact most of building volume hangs high up. The only exception is the narrow volume of stairs, toilets, storage and technical rooms, which however, through a large opening in the middle, allows the view to pass through and making the east side of the lagoon and the city visible. The public space, intimate and welcoming, equipped with seats, rest areas, green and shaded areas, is a succession of squares suitable for hosting various events, concerts, etc. Near the entrance to the Youth Center and bordering on the gym, on the blind wall of stairs and elevator, there is also an artificial wall for climbing, which enlivens and further qualifies the outdoor public space. Naturally, the need for any introspection or solar shading control of these large windows is solved with motorized roller blinds adhering to the glass.
RECOGNIZABLE
Beyond the porch, permeable to sight and clearly visible from the road and above the swimming pool and the gym on the ground level, the three suspended volumes, which host the main activities of the Youth Center, show themselves with the their colorful shells. These shells could be backlit and rear-projected or could be in metal slabs. Their coating could be decided depending on the activities of their inside and to modulate visual permeability between the different activities and the city. They also become, in the evening, the lighting system for the pool below, or they can be large wall screen visible from the square and the roads.
GREEN
Relative to air conditioning and sanitary water production systems, it is envisaged the use of efficient heat pumps. These, associated with an extensive supply of solar collectors and photovoltaic panels for electricity production, allow us to ensure high levels of energy efficiency. Even large glass surfaces will be high-performance with low-emissivity glass. The garden roof, in addition to the enjoyment of the users, mitigates summer solar radiation and ensures better management of rainwater. It is a pleasant place to walk and stop, served by a cafeteria; it is also suitable for hosting events. The rainwater will be collected from the entire project area in a large tank below swimming pool, for irrigation and toilets purposes.
SPACE FLEXIBILITY
To pursue the goal of maximum transformability and flexibility required, we have chosen to concentrate all the support services for the various activities on all floors inside a single functional volume in concrete, the volume of ancillary functions. In this way, rooms contained within the hanging shells are entirely free to accommodate the main activities. The three shells frame, conceived with beams of steel trusses, guarantee large spaces without intermediate vertical structures like pillars. Therefore, they can be easily rearranged against various changes in the future. In fact, within these colored volumes covered by glass or steel shells, the partitions are not fixed, but made of glass material or with removable panels and therefore can be modified as needed.
CHEAP
The building, with the exception of the volume of services (made of reinforced concrete), is designed entirely with iron frames and reticular beams. These frames, which can be built off the construction site, offer the advantage of rapid and relatively cheap realization. PARKING AREA In the basement of the Youth Center, there is a parking space of 1290 square meters that guarantees a total of 38 parking lots. Of these, two lots are places for the disabled, near the lift, and four lots are places for small cars. The entrance is through a two-way ramp and is easily connected to the adjacent existing parking area.
