KINDERGARTEN+ : TANAH LELUHUR
Nov 2017 - Jan 2018
(Click on gallery photos to expand)
In the rural village of Kampung Naga, Tasikmalaya, Indonesia, a kindergarten is to be proposed - but must include three other programmes that will benefit the villagers too.
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Total floor area: 198m2
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Programmes:
A tourist shop + Arts and crafts workshop
Public and children's gardens
A library
Two classrooms
Two bathrooms
A staffroom
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The challenge was to:
- reduce 'brain drain', where children from the village were growing up to leave and find jobs out of the village. There was a need to improve their local economy as well as creating an incentive for children to want to stay in the village.
- create a space that both children and working adults could use without clashing their activities, as they both have a similar work/school in the morning and free time in the afternoon.
- provide a space for more students and young adults who want to learn through books and hold meetings on group projects, etc.
- provide a space for gardening enthusiasts, as many of the houses in Kampung Naga are clustered closely together and there is no space for an individual/family to grow their own plants, even though they are part of a village that has a big focus on agriculture.
So the children have lessons in the morning in the Children's Garden - situated facing the West of the site. The adults use the public garden facing the East. The adults come in and tend to their garden patches in the afternoon, after work in the morning. This is so that whenever someone is in the garden, they are always shaded by the sun. Having the gardens separated also reduces the risk of children accidentally touching adult's plants - plants that adults grow and sell to tourists in the tourist shop.
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The tourist shop is for adults to sell their crafts, rice, vegetables and spices. Kampung Naga is a popular educational village that many schools and other members of the public visit to experience the traditional Sundanese lifestyle. This tourist shop is connected via a sliding door to the Arts and Crafts workshop.
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The Arts and Crafts workshop is where the kindergarten children learn to weave bamboo and play their traditional musical instruments as lessons in the morning. In the afternoon, the working adults come in and create crafts that they then sell in the tourist shop.
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These items to be sold in the tourist shop are to be displayed hung on the wall or on shelves. To facilitate an easier sale, large windows and a wide tabletop are provided. The tourists are drawn in when they see the items through the windows and their eyes are brought up by the items into the space above - the Library.
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The library is for students and young adults who have raised their concerns about not having a space for them to sit down and do homework together and learn.
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The two classrooms are for academic lessons - and are identical. There is a reason for that.
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This building may - in the future - be used as a template for other community buildings around South East Asia. It is highly customisable and easily constructed, with only two different walls (X and Y axis walls) being fit flush in between a uniform timber column balloon frame.