The countryside carries so much emotional weight and nostalgia through thousands of years of time. Currently, more than 100 villages disappear every day in China. On the other hand, the rise of city living standards and GDP require a more suitable tourist experience in the surviving villages. How can we combine the inheritance and preservation of villages with a countryside tourism business model? To provide a better ecosystem for lodge and inn, farm, organic agriculture and handmade crafts is the challenge that we are facing now!
Makers are the group of people who are leading us towards a future lifestyle. They make the impossible possible. Makers are affecting every field of our life, from the internet, design, products, finance, interaction, community, biology, science and all other aspects to provide us a better living quality and a whole new experience. Thus, once the countryside meets the makers, tradition meets innovation; nostalgia meets the crowd fund. What kind of spark will that make?
The rural maker includes but is not limited to lodge owners, craftsmen, nature schools, education camps, organic food producers, e-commerce, and farm owners.
Bamboo, a symbol of oriental culture, at the same time a fast-growing renewable material, appears to have many superb structural characteristics. We are looking for great ideas and interesting solutions from a design team, to utilize the excellent physical abilities of bamboo, and push the envelope of imagination, to create a village of rural makers and find a new system for the sustainable grow of the traditional village.
AIM Challenges:
The village in which the project is located is adjacent to Changtai Mayangxi Scenic Spot, Fujian, China, surrounded by forest land. The landform is mainly characterized by sloping fields, with good overlying vegetation. The project land is bordered by the Tourism Avenue in the west, and by the urban planned road in the south.
This contest intends to create a touristic focal point for this area. There will be six proposed design projects, with the site centering on the valley. The south and north sides are cut off by the planned road. A theme inn and a forest kindergarten are planned at the north side. To the south there will be an artist workshop village centering on the culture pavilion. A series of buildings will be constructed along the valley and near the mountain, extending to the south to link to the original symbiotic villages. Houses in the bamboo grove are used for lodges, study rooms, workshops and fairyland. They will carry children’s laughter, tell the wishes of the nature, blend in the water and mountain, and generate a unique rural maker settlement together with the nature.
Designers are kindly requested to take respect for nature into full account. We advocate symbiotic buildings and the height limit is not more than 2 floors. In the specific construction, we wish to reserve more characteristics of the site, respect the veins of the site, and apply more natural elements and materials.
We wish the participating design teams to apply the idea of nature and symbiosis to create excellent products with bamboo elements, while considering actual operation through crossover cooperation with makers, so as to make the final rural maker settlement a model village that can be operated with greater emphasis on contents than on form, allowing industrial innovation.
Entrants should select at least three proposed projects below to design according to the village planning:
Proposed project 1: Bamboo Brook Culture Pavilion
Necessary functions: Rural makers’ art exhibition hall, rural culture exhibition hall, and small conference room
Additional information: Mainly for exhibition of rural culture, also used as an art exhibition hall, containing rural maker alliance, village alliance, and crowd funding alliance, etc.
The culture pavilion provides regular exhibitions of works by contemporary well-known artists, accompanied by each marketing activity. Contemporary artists will also be invited to have a holiday experience, and create a fashion communication site.
Proposed project 2: Artist Workshop Village
Necessary functions: Theme exhibition areas to be provided for craft, story, life, technology, fully showcasing the connotation and application of bamboo, together with a commodity marketing and experience center.
Additional information: Large-sized bamboo buildings to be used as the exhibition space and internal decoration. An exhibition of bamboo-related intangible cultural heritage using modern means such as static exhibition, dynamic experience and multimedia to be used to present an audio, visual and playing feast. Onsite exhibition of traditional handicrafts such as bamboo weaving, bamboo carving, bamboo paper cutting, bamboo umbrella, bamboo fan and bamboo curtain, DIY bamboo handiworks, bamboo-made IPAD case, bamboo-made U disk, bamboo-made bicycle, together with sales of products with our own LOGO.
Proposed project 3: Children’s Courtyard (Forest Kindergarten)
Necessary functions: Children’s restaurant, little theater for children, parent-child playroom, handicraft classroom, children’s swimming pool, hotel rooms and lounge area, children’s library, and forest kindergarten
Additional information: The parent-child inn, an experiencing consumption platform with children’s families as target customers, consists of the children’s restaurant, little theater for children, parent-child playroom, handicraft classroom, children’s swimming pool, inn reception area and lounge area, hotel rooms, etc. It provides a high-quality amusement experience and holiday services for children’s families, and makes parents enjoy the time staying with their children. The children’s library will be made into a “magical book house” where children will put down their ipads and step into the palace of wisdom. At the same time, “story telling” time will be provided for children who are 2-4 years old. They will breathe in the nature, and listen to stories.
Proposed project 4: The Valley Library
Necessary functions: Book and coffee area, lecture hall, cultural creative store, DIY room, dessert bar, swimming area, and inn rooms
Additional information: The library should be built with local materials and integrated with nature, highlighting the harmonious coexistence with the nature, and integrating with the natural environment in the valley. It will not only provide free reading materials and space for tourists and villagers, but also be used as a space for exchange between tourists and villagers.
Title
Open Call: AIM Bamboo Architecture Competition for the Village of Rural MakersType
Competition Announcement (Ideas)Website
Organizers
Registration Deadline
April 18, 2016 11:30 PMSubmission Deadline
April 18, 2016 11:30 PMAddress
Price
Free
Proposed project 5: Bridge Inn
Necessary functions: Bamboo Brook Valley Restaurant (outdoor family party), bridge book bar, bamboo brook café, bridge art exhibition hall, small conference hall, coffee bar, landscape swimming pool, and inn rooms
Additional information: It’s the core supporting service center and central kitchen in the Bamboo Brook Valley area, providing basic services for owners settling in the area, such as holiday services, dining and food delivery, also providing picnic and party services for visitors on holiday.
Proposed project 6: Rural Makers’ Co-working Space
Necessary functions: Small conference room, open office space, road show, independent office space, coffee area, recreation area, and fitness center, etc.
Additional information: As the community center where rural makers gather, it provides required support for makers’ activities.
Optional projects:
As required, the design team may add other creative functional buildings that are helpful for the rural makers’ settlement, provided that they contribute to the industrial ecology, be environmentally friendly, sustainable, and operationally possible.
Submission Requirements:
This is a digital competition and hard copy proposals will not be accepted. All entries are to be submitted via e-mail before 18th April, 2016 (24:00 Beijing Time) to:info@aim-competition.com
Your attachment will include:
- 4 boards in A1 format, including floor plans, sections, elevations and images (300dpi)
- A maximum 500-words written report explaining your design intent in A4 format. (Chinese and English bilingual or English only.)
- A4 sheet state your name, contact details, affiliation and recent photo.
- The subject of email should be “Bamboo Design Competition / participant’s (or team's) name / award
- AIM appreciates if you can submit a 2-4 minute video which presents your design philosophy, contents need be included brief introduction of participants, project's summary description combining with boards. Video format should be MPEG\AVI\MP4, etc.
Your submission except video should not exceed 20MB.
Awards
Bamboo Architecture Design Award $8,000
Scenic Village Planning Award $5,000
Bamboo Structure Design Award $5,000
Innovative Operation Design Award $5,000
Download the information related to this competition here.