This facility is a day care center planned in the city of Quezon, located north-east of Manila, Philippines. The Philippine day care center, while its main function is a kindergarten/nursery, it also provides lodgings for the socially vulnerable and serves as a town community center. By having multiple functions, the day care center is more than just a nursery—it is a ”multi-purpose housing” made available for the city’s residents. It is a place where neighbors communicate with each other, a place of life and activities for the children and people without family. There, what is being contemplated is the proper way of a public “housing” that also provides communal functionalities.
The facility is designed so that many whirling circles intertwine into a network, creating one large eddy that stands in the shape of building. While each interior space performs a defined function, they combine to create a large swirl that becomes a comfortable outdoor space surrounded by open-air eaves and terrace. Unlike the interior spaces where the functions are defined, this centrally positioned outdoor space serves multiple functions, providing an outside living room where a multitude of diverse activities unfold and blend. The function-specific private interior space gradually continue toward a busy and public outdoor space. I am attempting to construct this eddy-shaped networked space as a new kind of “housing,” a place for mutual aid that is much needed in today’s society.
