Nanxin Village Neighborhood Market-原初建筑

Thumbnails

Nanxin Village Neighborhood Market

The project is located in Nanxin Village, Tianfu New Area, Chengdu. The site covers an area of 3,913 square meters and is currently a farmers' market. Surrounding the site are resettlement housing communities, a day care center for the elderly, and a community neighborhood center. The existing structure of the farmers' market is a steel-structured shed with simple facilities and 30 fixed stalls, of which the occupancy rate is less than 50%. The main group of people gathering at the farmers' market are middle-aged and elderly people, aged between 50 and 80. Their main activities include drinking tea, chatting, and playing cards for entertainment. The current facilities on the site cannot meet the needs of community activities, and there is a potential risk of elderly people getting injured when sitting on the high platforms. The elderly in the community hope that after the renovation, the site can be an outdoor extension of the day care center for the elderly, providing spaces suitable for drinking tea and playing cards, as well as additional activity spaces such as ping-pong tables. The merchants in the market hope that after the renovation, the market can form a scale and retain the villagers who go to nearby markets for shopping. The vendors hope to have a sheltered selling stall to protect them from wind and rain.

Through on-site research, we sorted out the traffic flow lines of the site, connected the originally fragmented site, and created a pocket park in the center. Chengdu has many cloudy days and a very hot and muggy summer with a long rainy season. People mostly like outdoor activities. Traditional dwellings have a large number of eave spaces under sloping roofs, which accommodate the daily interactions and lives of Chengdu people. Therefore, the eave space is a key spatial element that needs to be emphasized in this design.

The plan connects the existing buildings with the past community traditions, serving as a community complex. By integrating functions such as markets, tea houses, card rooms, rooftop farms, neighborhood centers, handicraft workshops, and rain gardens, it brings together people of all ages in the community. The retired elderly will no longer be disconnected from society, young people can socialize here, housewives can shop here, and children can play here. This project raises the social standards of recognition for welfare, happiness, safety and functionality.

The plan integrates the functional demands of various user groups within the community to create multiple public activity spaces. It enhances the original market function of the site, conducts regionalized sales planning, and adds handicraft workshops to support the community's distinctive sales activities. The existing chess and card-playing functions are retained, and a community chess and card room is set up for residents' use. Neighborhood tea houses and leisure sports areas are added to meet the daily neighborhood activity needs of community residents. The scale and number of vendors in the farmers' market are uncertain. In the design, the variability of stalls is repeatedly considered to provide convenience and flexibility for future leasing. Some of the vendors are elderly people from the village who sell their own small vegetables on the street, with a very small scale. They can only afford a stall fee of five yuan per day. If only fixed stalls are considered in the stall design, it will inevitably squeeze out the street vendors. Therefore, movable stalls are considered in the design, which can well maintain the original charging standards and protect the interests of small vendors.

The central garden serves as the main venue for intergenerational communication within the community, where people of all ages meet and interact. By integrating therapeutic landscapes, it creates spaces such as DIY gardening areas, natural rest areas, sensory healing spaces, and natural cognition spaces. These multiple approaches promote activities among the elderly, stimulate their various physical functions, enhance their physical activity, improve blood circulation, and boost their immunity. In the inner courtyard garden, reserved areas are provided for the elderly to place their potted plants, which can stimulate their desire to work and is beneficial to both their physical and emotional well-being.

The Gathering Under the Eaves - Every beam and tile, rekindling the warm bond between man and nature!

Name Nanxin Village Neighborhood Market
Type Architectural competition
Location Chengdu City, Sichuan Province
Area 3913 ㎡
Time The year 2021
Status Finalist
Client The First Global Design Competition for Community Beauty Spaces in Chengdu 2021