Project 09 | Spacing Community Grounds

Reshaping social spaces of the monsoon through community collaboration.

Master of Architecture, Year 2

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Periurban Vietnam - Nhon Duc:

In periurban Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam it is becoming more challenging to live with the monsoon. Rainfall is becoming more torrential, and accompanied with the rapid growth of periurban settlements paired with industrial development and highways, surface water no longer drains reliably or predictably.

The settlement of Nhon Duc is located about 15 km South-East from Ho Chi Minh City in periurban Vietnam. The satellite image taken in 2003 shows settlements emerging from the road infrastructure, and are likely inhabited by city workers and agriculture workers. The settlement continued to expand southward in a funnel-like pattern in 2021, following the central road infrastructure. This existing road has a very site-specific connection for those who travel to and from work in the city daily. These commutes and routines of the city-workers creates a phenomenon of a daily de and re-densification of the residents.

Their primary mode of transport is motorbikes on roads where congestion, high temperatures, and foul air are common. As more roads begin to link periurban settlements to the city, more settlements just like Nhon Duc will continue to emerge. These low-rise, low density residences highlight a common way of settling around the city’s periurban area for those who wish to live near to the city but are unable to afford it.

The Monsoon:

GIS Data was used to better understand the conditions of the site. The mapping sets consists of a mix of urbanisation, crop land density, infrastructure, and most importantly, the flooding in monsoon and non-monsoon seasons. The red circles indicate hyper-local areas within the selected site which have water logging issues regardless of the season. In turn, users avoid the waterlogged sites and settlements only emerge around them. This led to a new type of ‘Urban Power’ to emerge, as geographer Erik Swyngedouw discussed in 2004.

Stores next to roads flood during the monsoon, risking the goods of the store owners and their ability to do regular business, while hindering residents from sourcing fresh food and daily necessities. Land owners of the affected waterlogged lands cannot use the land for agriculture nor residence, which leads to them personally losing finances while the settlement also loses value as the land is not productive.

Monsoon water accumulates on roads and neighbourhoods for longer, rendering them unusable and threatening the livelihoods of the residents. As it is transforming space and society, I see this accumulation of water in this project as a potent force.

Spacing Community Grounds:

This project challenges the role of design to reshape social spaces of the waters through community collaboration, while arguing that there is an opportunity for those affected to reach mutually beneficial solutions to better their local economic resilience, public spaces, and environment.

Spacing Community Grounds consists of three main interventions:

The Elevated Marketspace

The Palm Tree Gardens

The Community Maker’s Center

The Elevated Marketspace:

This directly tackles the issue of waterlogged spaces without further disrupting the existing hydrological powers of the settlement. It consists of a complex of stilted palm timber structures seated above waterlogged grounds, providing a new community space for store owners, landowners, and residents to congregate. Waterlogging occurs as a hyper-local, area-specific condition which shifts and moves all around the site. As the land gets affected and becomes unusable, the landowners and the store owners may gather to reach a collective agreement to temporarily erect a series of elevated timber pavilions which sit above the floods. Store owners may rent a stall and relocate their goods to the Elevated Marketspace to continue their operations, while inhabitants may visit a new community space within the settlement. The landowners may receive a cut of the profits through this agreement as well.

Southeast Asian vernacular architecture located in other flood prone areas incorporate elevating living and communal spaces above grade level via politis systems, allowing access to safer and more comfortable habitable spaces. The concept incorporates locally harvestable materials, specifically oil palm timber. Oil palm timber is not only abundant, but it is also sustainable, strong, and affordable.

After the monsoon, the Elevated Marketspace is no longer required for its original purpose. The landowner will be given an opportunity to either settle the structure on their land or opt to demolish it.

Settled Form:

In the former, the community would need to collectively agree for the owner to keep the Elevated Marketspace, on his property, with at least half reserved for community uses.

Demolished:

In the latter, the Elevated Marketspace will be demolished, freeing up the land for another purpose, and its timber recycled for use elsewhere in the settlement.

The Palm Tree Gardens:

As the Elevated Marketspace is designed to be built with local palm tree timber, the Palm Tree Gardens is designed to be where the trees of the oil palm timber are planted, grown, and harvested through community-led parks within the settlement. These proposed parks are located on reserved sites within the settlement where the site is not fully utilized with permanent uses. (such as residence, plantations, or waterbodies) These sites can, through the Palm Tree Parks, act as an activator to inject life and activities into seemingly ‘dead’ spaces within the site.

The location of the parks will be selected following three main factors:

- with vehicular access from the road,

- within <500m from a water body for irrigation,

- land use mix of majority bare soil or herbaceous greens. (Patch Atlas)

The species of palm selected is the elaeis guineensis due to the efficiency and benefits this tree can bring. Each tree takes approximately 1 year to nurse and about 3 years to mature, and maintenance is minimal. There are by products such as the fruits and the leaves of the tree which can be used for local foods, paving over muddy roads, and palm oil. The trees are organized according to the peg grid of oil palm plantations to ensure that the trees have sufficient space (9 meters radius) to mature. Pocket spaces in between the trees are designed to be social spaces for users to play, to take a walk, or to relax under the shades of the oil palm trees.

The gardens consists of furnitures which have been recycled from past Elevated Marketspace structures. In addition to growing the oil palms until maturity, the Palm Tree Gardens also serve as a community gathering place where people can socialise and learn about sustainability, learning that the oil palms will be harvested in the future to improve their standard of living in the future.

The Community Maker's Center:

The Community Maker’s Center is planned as a local timber processing plant which doubles as a local makerspace and community centre. This centre is the heart of the community decision making processes, and allows for the community to gather together and share spaces and knowledge with one another.

The Community Maker’s Center is located near to the existing local furniture and building materials workshops, and it may be operated by the local woodworkers. This facility is used to produce and to maintain the Elevated Marketspaces, and therefore will be the main hub of processing the oil palm timber harvested from the Palm Tree Gardens.

The space can also be open to the public during off periods (such as the non-monsoon seasons) to allow users to use the machines and be in a collaborative space to foster a greater sense of community spirit through sharing.

The Community Maker’s Center’s capacity may serve other nearby settlements as well, and can turn into another form of revenue for the community. The Inhabitants, possibly even at the locality level, ought to collaborate, invest, and participate in this project collectively.

Conclusion:

This project challenges the role of design to reshape social spaces of the waters through community collaboration, while arguing that there is an opportunity for the affected stakeholders to reach mutually beneficial solutions to better their local economic resilience, public spaces, and environment. By designing a model for growth for Nhon Duc through the Elevated Marketspace, the Palm Tree Gardens, and the Community Maker’s Center, I believe that Spacing Community Grounds can reshape social spaces of the settlement.

Spacing Community Grounds aims to create a safer, more sustainable, more collaborative space for living during and after the monsoon seasons.

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