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Border Village Community Center (Hashiyeh)
Border Village Community Center (Hashiyeh)
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Other Projects by Next Office
Border Village Community Center (Hashiyeh)
The intrinsic essence of the small village of Eshaqabad, home to 300 people, is being “on the edge”. Located in one of the most remote parts of Iran (near the border of Pakistan), Eshaqabad has both geographically and contextually the farthest distance from the central parts of the country, and, as a result, this rural community suffers from shortages of basic social infrastructure.
If considering very limited resources, is it possible to make a real difference in the life quality of these marginalized unprivileged people, only by means of architecture reflecting their cultural values and their built tradition?
Rereading the existing situation with the help of professional active facilitators in empowering local communities, we discovered that a multipurpose community center with a focus on crafts and skills-based learning and encouraging interactional activities can have significant added value to the life quality of the rural. This conclusion was shaped after receiving reports on the lack of women’s participation in social activities, high rate of high school dropouts, and weak educational basis in students in primary levels due to lack of required learning context.
In order to reach this purpose, we decided to reach out to “Development from the Inside”, meaning instead of having nonlocal dictating generic plans from the outside of the community, people themselves evolve strategies to enhance their rural life.
With the enthusiastic contribution of local skilled masons along with the youngsters eager to improve the quality of their lives and keen to compensate for the social educational injustice experience, and dreamful children, all having key roles, the realization of this project became possible. Taking a careful financial approach, this spontaneous gesture aspired to use locally available resources as well as assigning local masons to execute the constructions, instead of employing non-local contractors.
Following the idea of relying on existing capacities and potentials in order to increase the feasibility of this project, the villagers donated a piece of land at the heart of the village to the community center. Meanwhile, our volunteer team started working on the design, collecting villagers’ opinions, and reaching out to the elders of Eshaqabad for advice, to deliberately conduct the project.
We figured that a collaborative non-luxurious architecture, rooted in the cultural background of the village, and consequently, adaptable to this rural setting would be a good solution. It could be a way to create a space to evoke imagination and induce hope through the provision of required infrastructures in order to raise awareness and nurture the aspirations of the local people. This was an ongoing exercise to think and act together with indigenous people from evolving the idea to building the community center through the whole process.
The proposed plan is to be located on 2600 square meters of land. Entrances are designed along the most common routes that lead to the main places of the village including the charity primary school, the mosque, and the market. The flexibility of this program allows everyone to participate in developing the community. The educational spaces contain a preschool, two separate classes for boys and girls, a study room, and a library. The public spaces include a Divan-ja (Gathering Hall often used by men), a playground, an open amphitheater, and a multi-purpose hall where self-development workshops can be held. A catalog of various courtyards, customized for particular ranges of age, connects all these areas.
In order to build this multipurpose center, we utilized Karz, a kind of palm tree leaf, along with the common stone walling tradition of this region. We also considered taking advantage of the thermal capacity of thick piers.
Since Eshaqabad is located near a river, villagers use the river rocks as a suitable, durable, and cheap material since they can easily gather these rocks from the riverbed, and it only costs them to deliver the material to the village.
Moreover, in the hot weather of Baluchistan, this center welcomes the villagers throughout the day and night with its various indoor spaces and its courtyards shaded with canopies.
In other words, here architecture can symbolize a tree in an arid area, in need of constant public effort and attention in order to survive, grow, and flourish. Hence, instead of being only the consumers of the architecture, the villagers will particularly contribute to the creation, development, maintenance, and thriving of this center. This is a place to revive ignored capacities, produce a synergy through increasing women’s engagement in social activities, as well as paving a path of growth for young people and teenagers of Eshaqabad.
If considering very limited resources, is it possible to make a real difference in the life quality of these marginalized unprivileged people, only by means of architecture reflecting their cultural values and their built tradition?
Rereading the existing situation with the help of professional active facilitators in empowering local communities, we discovered that a multipurpose community center with a focus on crafts and skills-based learning and encouraging interactional activities can have significant added value to the life quality of the rural. This conclusion was shaped after receiving reports on the lack of women’s participation in social activities, high rate of high school dropouts, and weak educational basis in students in primary levels due to lack of required learning context.
In order to reach this purpose, we decided to reach out to “Development from the Inside”, meaning instead of having nonlocal dictating generic plans from the outside of the community, people themselves evolve strategies to enhance their rural life.
With the enthusiastic contribution of local skilled masons along with the youngsters eager to improve the quality of their lives and keen to compensate for the social educational injustice experience, and dreamful children, all having key roles, the realization of this project became possible. Taking a careful financial approach, this spontaneous gesture aspired to use locally available resources as well as assigning local masons to execute the constructions, instead of employing non-local contractors.
Following the idea of relying on existing capacities and potentials in order to increase the feasibility of this project, the villagers donated a piece of land at the heart of the village to the community center. Meanwhile, our volunteer team started working on the design, collecting villagers’ opinions, and reaching out to the elders of Eshaqabad for advice, to deliberately conduct the project.
We figured that a collaborative non-luxurious architecture, rooted in the cultural background of the village, and consequently, adaptable to this rural setting would be a good solution. It could be a way to create a space to evoke imagination and induce hope through the provision of required infrastructures in order to raise awareness and nurture the aspirations of the local people. This was an ongoing exercise to think and act together with indigenous people from evolving the idea to building the community center through the whole process.
The proposed plan is to be located on 2600 square meters of land. Entrances are designed along the most common routes that lead to the main places of the village including the charity primary school, the mosque, and the market. The flexibility of this program allows everyone to participate in developing the community. The educational spaces contain a preschool, two separate classes for boys and girls, a study room, and a library. The public spaces include a Divan-ja (Gathering Hall often used by men), a playground, an open amphitheater, and a multi-purpose hall where self-development workshops can be held. A catalog of various courtyards, customized for particular ranges of age, connects all these areas.
In order to build this multipurpose center, we utilized Karz, a kind of palm tree leaf, along with the common stone walling tradition of this region. We also considered taking advantage of the thermal capacity of thick piers.
Since Eshaqabad is located near a river, villagers use the river rocks as a suitable, durable, and cheap material since they can easily gather these rocks from the riverbed, and it only costs them to deliver the material to the village.
Moreover, in the hot weather of Baluchistan, this center welcomes the villagers throughout the day and night with its various indoor spaces and its courtyards shaded with canopies.
In other words, here architecture can symbolize a tree in an arid area, in need of constant public effort and attention in order to survive, grow, and flourish. Hence, instead of being only the consumers of the architecture, the villagers will particularly contribute to the creation, development, maintenance, and thriving of this center. This is a place to revive ignored capacities, produce a synergy through increasing women’s engagement in social activities, as well as paving a path of growth for young people and teenagers of Eshaqabad.
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