The Pitch
Location
About Baitasi-Historical Cultural District
Baitasi (The White Pagoda Templeļ¼is located at the historical and preservation zone of Xicheng district in Beijing. It is not far away from Xidan shopping center. The site can be accessed by many transporation methods and remains a cultural oasis for the public in the Beijing. With the development of city micro regeneration process, Baitasi area has been selected as a experimental field to integrate different ideas in the process of renovation. This proposal start to improve the public environment from street scale and then expand to the district and city scale later.
Background
This is how I found my site and why I think it is Target Space that could be repurposed for a new public space. In terms of the construction of infrastructure in the hutong area of Beijing, public bathroom has became a a series problem in the historical districts. Restricted by limited hutong space, public bathrooms are only considered as a service space. These Public bathrooms in hutong area are not attractive for local community, leading to negative public space and worse sanitary condition caused by little attentions for local people. With the movement of Urban renewal like Baitasi Remade plan, I hope this proposal could reshape public bathrooms and transform the public bathrooms from a single-use service space to multiple-purpose public space by integrating landscape and art elements into the design. The whole goals will be divided as following aspects.
Making a Better Life
This proposal aims to improve the life convenience for local people. The accessibility of hutong bathroom has became a serious problem in historical districts. Many hutong residents do not have their private bathroom in their units due to the limitation of urban sewer network systems. In the residential apartments with multiple floors, all of water sewer pipes are installed at the same vertical spatial location. However, residential units in hutong area are spread to different locations, leading to problems for pipe installation and limited bathrooms. This proposa aims to evaluate the accessibility score of existing bathrooms and add public bathrooms to the location with accessibility need, improving the quality of residential life.
Image Source: https://www.lafargeholcim-foundation.org/projects/maximize-the-minimum
Improvement of Public Health
With the development of urbanization, the bathroom revolution has became a hot topic in the china. The development of public bathroom is a criteria which can measure civilization of the country. Looking back the journey of china development, the public bathroom reflects the change of sanitray habitat of chinese people. The construction of public bathroom significantly influence the public health. Worse sanitary condition of hutong bathroom increase the risk of disease for local community and people. This proposal aims to improve the sanitary condition of public bathrooms and public health.
Image Source: https://www.btsremade.com/en
Design and Community
Encouraging the whole community to participate in the decision-making process. The design of public bathroom will not just determined by designers, but by the local community. Some of existing problems in the hutong bathroom has been identified and categorized in to following 8 catrgories.
Image Source: https://www.lafargeholcim-foundation.org/projects/maximize-the-minimum
Program
At this site, some of the pocket space in hutong area of Baitasi will be reimagined as a Plugined Bathroom. From the public perspective, that could be developed in different program types, including explore the difference between the Home Bathroom and Plugined Bathroom and how to create a Plugined bathroom that could be fit to the hutong environment. Also, this project might be treated as a curriculum in the school that could help students and children to understand the urban infrastructure supporting system behind the Plugined bathroom project. Furthermore, combined with landscape and art elements will help to create a mixed space which could not only provide service space for local community, but also could bring more entertainment space for people and visitors. Last, in the process of idea brainstorm, different comments and suggestions are welcomed to maximum the public benefits in this project.
Home-What is Plugined Bathroom?
School-Urban Infrastructure Network Course
Art-landscape Elements with Plugined Bathroom
Community-Ideas Hunters in Community
Project Research
The project is supplemented by the research I've provided here.These maps and links help to situate the project within its context and provide information that stakeholders might need to make decisions about the project.
About the research, some maps are provided to help us to understand the context from a city scale and site scale. Also, some articles that related to the history of beijing hutong and toilet are added to establish the realationship between the hutong and bathroom. Also, some contemporary ideas about public bathroom design are introduced to serve as references.
Links
This is the introduction about this history of Beijing Hutong and Bathroom.
This is the introduction of different public bathroom cases
Maps and photos
Project Precedents
The following projects are great examples of the type of project Plugin Bathroom will be. These examples will be used to guide the development of the project and as references for the public to better understand the proposal.
Hutong Bubble
This is a project about Hutong Bubble made by MAD Architects. The designers reimagined the hutong toilet as a inregular surface covered by reflective materials that could reflect surrounding environment in to the courtyard. Relective environment "enlarge" the space and compose a strong comparsion between traditional courtyard environment and contrmporary design language.
Image Source: https://www.archdaily.com/50931/beijing-hutong-bubble-mad
Micro Landscape
This is the project about Micro Garden made by MAD Architects. This proposal combines the micro garden with public toilet, bring landscapes in to the hutong area from a new perspective. Reimagined bathroom provides people more rest and interacting space.
Image Source: http://www.i-mad.com/zh-hans/
Toilet in Ebisu Park
This is the project about the toilet in Ebisu Park. This proposal used the simple geomertic form to compose the public toilet combined with landscape elements. This prototype create a "ambiguous space" with the combination of landscape elements and public bathroom.
Image Source: https://www.gooood.cn/the-tokyo-toilet-project.htm
Project Images
The following images show existing site conditions to give a sense of what does the site looks like.
Site Context Map
This map illustrates the site context, including site location within the city area, surrounding greenlands and waterways, and accessibility information.
Site Model
These pictures shows the existing condition from both aerial view and perspective view so that help us to know the surrounding contexts in different scales.
View of South Street Entrance
View of South East Angle
View of East Street Angle
Site Animation
This video shows the generation process of "Plug-in" bathroom structure and the relationship between landscape and infrastructure.