ARTICLE READING 

The project that I was working on required a group of 5 people. We were asked to design a “little village” which the villagers are facing a specific phobia. My village were occupied with villagers that faced ‘Monophobia’ (fear of being alone). In order to solve this problem, we had to carefully design the village in a way that everyone will be able to have visual connection with each other either during day or night, and even if 1 other villager is away to work.

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               In relation to the topic of simplicity, the design of every villager cannot be too complex or different to one another therefor each houses has to have a simple design in order to look as one village that interacts with one another and not individually designed. This was one of the task given to us in this project of making a little village.

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               However in relation the complexity, each villagers has different occupations which includes an Officer, a chef, a Veterinarian, a Mechanic, and an Entertainer. Each individual houses has to fit or design as its occupation of the owner based on functionality and life style. Other than that, as the village is occupied with ‘Monophobics’ we decided to join all the houses together. This idea was inspired by the ‘Hakka House’ in china, where everyone lived in one big compound with a center courtyard.

 

 

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              For my design, the occupant of the house is a policeman and a security guard of the village. The form of the design uses simple geometry of rectangles and trapeziums which are carefully formed based of the view towards other villagers houses. This is an important factor to solve the problem of a monophonic person in the same time as a security, he has to be able to have direct vision to the whole village. Openings are carefully placed only where there is public activity that’s going on outside and solid walls for little privacy.

              

             There is a room where a space will be shared with the neighbouring house next to mine which is the Clown (entertainer). The space will be used for daily activities, by sharing spaces the 2 neighbour will have a sense of company and not lonely, because they are able to hear and feel each other presences. Hence, increase the relationship with one another.

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          My design is simple in form however it is complex, because there is a lot of consideration for the phobia that the villagers face which effect the design form, openings placement, and also the space planning of the whole village in order to overcome the phobia. As said by Vittorio Gregotti, 1996, “A building is simple not because its shapes conform to elementary geometry, not because all its parts voice their necessity, both reciprocally and with respect to the meaning of the specific architectural solution”.