Shi Aiwei (She/Her)

Although markets and ballroom are fading from view, arts and culture are still a link between citizens and the city. This thesis hopes to continue the local culture of calton by providing a good community space, helping local people to build social connections and enhancing cultural exchange.

The Calton has few civic buildings and exchange space. Although the Barras gather some of the cultural venues.It’s hard to create a strong social connection between citizens through those single functional venues. So It is possible to create a community art cultural center in this area. A more open and multifunctional cultural centre would gathering people of all ages, Further promote exchanges between citizens. The arts centre could attempt to act as a fulcrum to connect Glasgow green , housing and markets, breaking down the boundaries between the calton area and the city. Therefore, the art culture of the barras can be sustained. People from different backgrounds and sectors collaborate together，and to play in the renewal of culture.

The building’s function is oriented towards three main directions: artistic dissemination, education and cultural exchange. It combines the main functions of a library, performance hall, gallery and co-working with open spaces for dining and outdoor interaction. Libraries provide more knowledge to local people, performance halls and galleries provide artistic atmosphere, co-working and art studios attract young people from different place to boost the economy of the area. A wide range of cultural activities will attract people with different needs and will also active the cultural scene in Barras.

This project is located in the heart of the busiest area of the barras, in the context of the social issues of the calton area. We need to rethink what is really meaningful public space; and the rational arrangement of indoor living space and community space when family and labor are more closely related.

The whole proposal revolves around these three points: how to balance the efficiency of young people working from home with the comfort of living at home; How can the public spaces be made more user-friendly and maximise their utilisation; How to give residents a sense of security and belonging.

As each young person has different needs for a private space and a co-working space, the scheme has designed a series of free living units based on the needs of the residents: a single flat with a full floor of communal study rooms, a single/couple flat with a private study room, a double room apartment and a triple room apartment with the option to work from home or go to the communal study rooms. The community has a total of 15 units with a capacity for approximately 70 people, with entrances to the east, west and north. The community centre has a communal dining area, cafe, retail on the ground floor, a communal study room on the first floor and a gym on the second floor which providing maximizing good community space. The two courtyards on either side have different levels of privacy, combined with access buildings in each direction, connecting the various nodes of the public space and giving residents maximum freedom to walk around.

As labor and home become increasingly intertwined, new forms of living need to focus on balancing the two. Working at home without clear zoning can easily lead to low productivity, and if located in a co-working space, it can easily be disturbed by the noise. Balancing the comfort of a private space and the efficiency of work is the focus of this project.

In this project, a simple living space is provided for young people who work mostly from home, such as writers, designers or craftsmen. The ground floor as the main living space includes a dining room, a double-height parlor, and a bedroom will be located in the most private part of the ground floor; the first floor provides a separate work space to help people leave the distractions of family behind and focus on their work. In this way the productive and the domestic are connected, but are clearly separated vertically. When this residential form comes together to form a residential cluster, the terrace and work area on the first floor can be transformed into a platform for communal connection.