Adaptive Socio-Cultural EpiCentre/

Dana Ibrahim

Jordan

Project Details

Location(City/Country):

Amman / Jordan

Typology:

Cultural

Year (Design/Construction):

2021 / -

Area (Net/Gross):

- / 2800 m2

Operational Carbon emissions (B6) kgCO2e/m2/y:

-

Embodied Carbon emissions (A1-A3) kgCO2e/m2:

-
  • Rain water harvesting;
  • Integration between greenery and the building;
  • Use of natural light and ventilation;
  • Use of solar energy.

Project description as provided by the author:

It was a library and will always be but in another way.

Libraries today have changed in many aspects regarding the functions, the use, and the forms. It might be thought that libraries will disappear in the future and people will no longer use them. However, libraries are not important for only reading books but in being a fundamental function in the community and a true meaning of generations’ renaissance.

The project – which the core is the library – started from a personal experience, noticing that in the MENA region, people cannot go by walking to libraries, which means they are far from their homes. Therefore, it is not easy to go to libraries for all people which is a big problem for such a fundamental function. In other words, it is not accessible for different categories of people such as children, elderlies, and people with disabilities.

The project is a new representation of libraries in the MENA region that is offered to people from all categories without the need to use transportation. The project is divided into two main functions; the library and the cultural research centre that studies the cultural aspect of the site and supports the library. It came from people’s needs which were one of them; the need to have socio-cultural activities.

The site selection was based mainly on the distance where the average person can walk without taking a rest and it was 1.6 km, which is between 15-20 minutes walking to reach the site.

The definition of the project came from its two parts: the practical and the theoretical ones. The practical part – which is the public library – serves today as a contemporary culture library and it has the same function as the community and cultural centres. The theoretical part is represented by the cultural research centre and precisely will study the performance-oriented view of research culture that relies on quantitative measures and focuses on research outputs and their impact on the economy and society. When the two parts are combined with sustainable development elements – to serve future’s and today’s needs -, we have an “Adaptive Socio-cultural EpiCentre “.

Adaptive came from the idea that the project will be adaptive in all sites that have the same issues. And ‘Epicentre’ emerged from the extreme use of sustainable principles of the design.

The project is based on its sustainable core – which is part of the library – that represents a flexible and enjoyable journey that the user will have to make the project active 24 hours. The sustainable core is the link between other functions of the design. When moving up, the noise become less increasingly.

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