Design idea: Layer of the golden
Location: inside Pantai Cahaya Bulan, Kelantan
Client: N.A.
Material and Construction: Concrete + glass
Category: Mixed used – Small industry + dwelling
Site context: flatland facing the sea
Area: 690 sqm @ 7430 sq ft
A brief
Songket is a fabric that belongs to the brocade family of textiles of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei. It is hand-woven in silk or cotton, and intricately patterned with gold or silver threads. The metallic threads stand out against the background cloth to create a shimmering effect. In the weaving process, the specific special threads is inserted in between the silk or cotton weft (latitudinal) threads.
There are two sites for this task, which are two students will be working on different types of a cottage industry. I’m inside the site A, which is my task is a songket cottage industry, while the other friends will be working on the batik cottage industry.
This complex will consist of several components; a workplace, sales gallery, and dwelling. No fencing, and minimum four car park bays required; 2 for a visitor and another 2 is for the owner.
The cottage industry in Malaysia is like a family business, which the workers sometimes come from family members itself.
There are two sites for this task, which are two students will be working on different types of a cottage industry. I’m inside the site A, which is my task is a songket cottage industry, while the other friends will be working on the batik cottage industry.
This complex will consist of several components; a workplace, sales gallery, and dwelling. No fencing, and minimum four car park bays required; 2 for a visitor and another 2 is for the owner.
The cottage industry in Malaysia is like a family business, which the workers sometimes come from family members itself.
The solution
The task is individual, the only things that a student must take notes are, how to make a link both sites of a different owner. The best thing is the adjacent site is batik industry, which are both is textile base. We decided to link both complexes at a sales gallery - which the customer will have, more variety of fabric art pieces.
The task is individual, the only things that a student must take notes are, how to make a link both sites of a different owner. The best thing is the adjacent site is batik industry, which are both is textile base. We decided to link both complexes at a sales gallery - which the customer will have, more variety of fabric art pieces.
The architecture
The term songket comes from the Malay/Indonesian word sungkit, which means "to hook". It has something to do with the method of songket making; to hook and pick a group of threads, and then slip the gold threads in it. Some says that the word songket was derived from songka, a Palembang cap in which gold threads was first woven. The word menyongket means ‘to embroider with gold or silver threads’. Songket is a luxury product traditionally worn during ceremonial occasions as sarong, shoulder cloths or head ties. Tanjak or Songket headdresses were worn at the courts of the Malay Sultanates. Traditionally Muslim women and adolescent girls wove songket; "some boys and men are also weaving today". Traditionally-patterned Sumatran textiles embody a system of interpretable emblems. – Source: wikipedia
The site is 24m x 35m, facing the open sea of South China Sea, which is located at one of Malaysia hotspot tourism beach – Pantai Cahaya Bulan. A very breezy fresh air from the seas, sandy types of land, and flatland surface make this site much more interesting. I’m using an idea of two parallel blocks, which will define a special function on each form. It’s also following the sun-path and easier for the wind to pass through the site. These basic forms later will define from one stage to another.
The zoning is definitely very important for me. The two blocks are divided on the plan as; a dwelling and working space. While the whole ground level is dedicated as a working space, which is the placement is following every step of songket making. The long corridor before the visitor reaches the staircase going up to the floor above is showing that step. It’s very important for me to keep it to educate every visitor of how that songket been made and appreciate it before you see their final product. The gallery is linked with adjacent batik industry, and the other block is dedicated for dwelling only.
Since it’s located in a kampong architecture influence, I’m using a combination of contemporary and Malay house – vernacular architecture. It’s a real fully concrete structure, which the facade is following Malay architecture. Basically, it had been shown here how the facade treatment is following a pixelation of songket pattern. It’s should be in a pitch roof, but my decision is to maintain the current form, that very define well from far. Space proportion inside is clearly shown; no double volume which we can feel an environment of living inside a house. It’s close to a house alike, but main consideration if how we deal with the human scale.
Taking out the form and creating a plan is an interesting method. I’m using a narrow plan for this scheme to give a space for better natural lighting and perfect cross ventilation. Front and rear facade is facing the sunlight directly, the place for me to play with a sun shading device – a perforated panel. It’s come with two types here – a rotatable panel (gallery) and sliding panel (residential).
Passive design is really taking care here; it’s reflecting a living style in tropical by the seaside, a rustic charm of kampong life. In classical Malay house architecture, usually the house itself is elevated above the ground, for a lot of reasons; a local weather, material, safety, and as a working space.
It’s a good idea which shown in my ground level design – the working place. It’s close to nature surrounding, which is the flora and fauna; it’s fascinating the artist to create the fabric masterpiece. Give an inspiration of nature, which transferred on their fabric creation. Special study base on the project is to create a super long cantilever form, more than 6 meters. It’s supported using a big wall about 3.6m x 450mm. The thickness of the floor structure at the cantilever form is about 400mm. It’s fully concrete, and the wall is help to stiffening the structure.
The other interesting study is the transparent concrete. It’s a real structure but show a characteristic of transparency. Its same strength as the solid concrete, but that speciality makes it more interesting. The complex will only have one kind of this wall, which is where the slanting staircase will happen. It's slanted 10 degrees to punch the gallery form. This idea makes the space inside still get the natural sunlight, while there is no window.
All floor structure is using a flat slab structure, to make use of clean floor and ceiling. It’s help to shorten the period of construction, while fewer waste materials due to less usage of moulding to cast every slab.
The vertical vegetation creepers are parallel to her special concrete wall. It's creating two different combination of material, which is how the songket was created. As that solid wall was a base while that creepers are a gold or silver threads. My visitor is walking through that weaving zones and feel that spirit of songket.
The user or the owner will be living inside at the dwelling block in this planning stay at the back side of the house, the bedroom 01 to bedroom 04. The master bedroom is framing seaside, filtered by a perforated panel for sun shading. Visitor will follow the path that drive by her special transparent concrete, and lead to the gallery at first floor. This is very simple architecture planning and clearly dividing between public and private space.
This special practice is mainly referring on a local industry. The programme, design, and approach for people to live accordingly to their climate, culture and necessities.
