Chilbo Culture Centre for Youth / Studio In Loco + Utopian Architects

Save this picture!

+ 27

Save this picture!

Text description provided by the architects. Compared to the amount of time youth groups are required to spend in private institutes or after school tutoring, it is usually thought that they are not given proper opportunities to explore their interests and hobbies. Including public schools, many of the spaces youth groups may visit and stay are far from alluring. For the "youth group" includes a such large spectrum of ages from kindergarten goers to college students, community’s youth centers need to well support varying needs and wants of different age groups. The Chilbo Youth Center aims to provide a platform where the youth can appreciate their most favored spots, where they may choose different places to be, and where spatial characteristics of each space are precisely experienced from their eye levels.

Save this picture!

The site is divided into two parts: one for the parking space and the footsal court, and the other for the indoor spaces. In a way to organize different programs, each one is given a particular form that are driven from the typical form of a “house”, the familiar shape of so-called a barn house. Each “house” is adjusted with its height and floor area, through which they grow to adequate home for diverse programs. Located in the north edge of the Homesil Park, the site generously opens up to its surroundings except towards the North where there is a daycare center recently completed across the street. Instead of being vertically stacked into multiple levels, individual spaces in the Chilbo Youth Center are spreaded out horizontally comprising only two stories; the square meter of the upper level is as half large as the lower one. Programs are seated in their proper place, at the very center of which a light well inspirits the surrounding area with natural light gliding in.

Save this picture!

Save this picture!

The light well houses an information desk and an open lounge behind. The band practice space, two singing rooms, gym, and the dance studio, categorised as the “noise zone”, are set aside from the information desk by folding glass doors.  The administrative offices, the “working area”, are located towards the North. The book cafe binds the ground and upper level with grand stairs, and the auditorium is located below. The changing colour and texture of natural light at the very core of the ground floor renders the most ordinary yet enchanting scenes throughout a day, and around it unfolds the diverse universe for the youth.

Save this picture!

In order for the youth to experience more than a box, both physically and metaphorically, spaces in the youth center are persistently provided with varying spatial characteristics that can be enjoyed with five senses. The book cafe and the gym are given the highest ceiling and the largest volume inside the building. Middle schoolers reading books in their favourite spots on the grand stairs, soft buzzing sound of small talks between a mother and a child, and the passers by who stride along the edge of the stand to move from one floor to the other all together deliver the characteristic of the book cafe. The noise of cheering shouts and bouncing balls, rhythmical echo of young players' steps, and the lazy afternoon sun beam drifting into the space compete the gym as a whole.

Save this picture!

Save this picture!

Save this picture!

Save this picture!

At the every end of walkways inside the building visual fields grow further outside. One window is faced with another, and the end of a passage is accentuated by a window and its view and its light. Through this structure of spaces, walls are merely dividing tools, but they rather connect and relate the spaces on their both sides. The "sharing walls" on the second floor are built with small show-boxes, benches, windows, and shelves. Besides enabling visual connection or providing spaces for hand-crafted goods, the wall invites people to sit and stay in the space. As a result, the passage in front of the multipurpose rooms becomes another adequate space for the youth to stay and rest, a place more than just a threshold.

Save this picture!