Design Educates Awards 2022

Terra cotta studio This building is located next by Thu Bon River in Dien Ban District, Quang Nam Province. The river has a huge effect on the inhabitants around. Most people here live on agriculture along with several traditional occupations such as pottery, natural sleeping mat, rice paper wrappers making… The studio is where the artisan works on his projects and comes up with new ideas. The building is a 7m×7m×7m cube inspired by the image of a block of clay pulled up from the nearby river. The studio and exhibition spaces are created by “weaving” the natural surroundings, other watchers together with the daily activities of artisan around the potter’s wheel. Light is brought directly from the atrium to the central position where the turntable is located The artist works in the boundary between light and shadow. He will be able to move between two areas of light and dark shadow area for contemplation. He can have soulful conversations with the works, his shadow and with himself. The second floor space is a wooden frame system for exhibiting artist's completed works and a place to cope with floods - in October every year the water of the river rises more than 2m above the foundation of the studio. Everybody accesses freely in wooden shelves and blends into the space. These shelves are not fixed so that it can create void and filled space in between. From the wooden frame space, we can view the products, look outside over the garden where there are bamboo fences and a beautiful river, as well as observe the artisans working at the center. We want to make the wooden frame to be a connection between visitors, pottery, artisan and surrounding context. The shell of the building is seen as a thin layer of fabric surrounding the wall of a cube, which is made by stacking traditional terracotta bricks. We try to create a space where the external environment is able to interact with the internal architectural area. The artist can hear the sound of leaves swinging in the wind, the sound of birds, and feel the steam from the river while working at the center of his studio. The outermost is a bamboo fence for drying unburnt potteries, and a place to hang out or have a relaxing tea break outdoors. It is also the conventional boundary between the building and the garden. The bamboo fence is made from the bamboo bushes nearby. This architecture conveys the simplicity and the admiration for pottery, thus telling a story about this occupation. We search for straightforward easy spaces with simple common materials, but still having the opportunity to embrace the complexity of attractiveness and where imagination communicates with place.