Archwerk
House of Clay Studio
a ceramic artist studio in the context of abandoned metal sculpture workshop. an experiment of used material and revitalization for the neighborhood context.
unbuilt, 2007

event schedule: workshop, office, product display and gallery, and gathering space

The location of this project is very unique. The site was a bronze workshop which had gold years in eighty. Nowadays, there is no activity related to the bronze workshop.

One of the reasons the project located on this site is to start to revitalize the bronze workshop. We want the activity of ceramic workshop will generate the activity of bronze workshop. However, the activity of the bronze workshop now will be planned to be different in ways and scale than the past.

The ceramic studio will be located in one of existing building of bronze workshop. There is an old steel structure with zinc roof and no wall except the boundary wall. The structure is about 6 meters height.

The program is quiet simple. They are workshop area, gallery area, and a little office. The workshop area will be used for mass production of the artist (craftsman) and sometimes will be used for practicing the participants of short course program which held by the gallery. The gallery will be planned to be exhibition area for the artist. The little office will attach to the gallery because there is just need a little space.

If it is needed, the activity of the gallery and workshop area will be extended to the inner court in south of the building. It means the interior must be has an interaction with the exterior.

The strategy is placed a lot of openings at the building side which faced the inner court. It will give others benefits. The interior’s gallery and inner court can visually interact to the bronze workshop building. There will be a visual interaction between bronze workshop and ceramics workshop via inner court.

The main challenge in the design of the structure is to build a new building but still maintain the existing structure. The owner of the bronze workshop wants to keep the entire asset. In the other hand the client (the owner of ceramic gallery) wants to use the used material that she have. The most oh them are zinc sheets and bamboos.

Fortunately, the existing structure is a combination the steel truss and zinc roof. It will be easier to attach the provided materials to the existing structure. There will be an added structure to strengthen the existing construction.

The height of existing building, fortunately give us benefit, because it makes the air flow more easily to move. We decide to keep the height of the building as well as before. There is will be no second or mezzanine floor. To makes the air flow more easily to move, the building envelop will placed to rest openings. The composition of the openings will be located to push the cross ventilation. Cross ventilation is very important in this building because the activity of the ceramic workshop is to produce heat. The whole room in the building (gallery and office) will have high temperature if we ignore it. Then the building is not a comfortable space to work and doing indoor activity.