Text description provided by the architects. In the fourth year of Yuanyou in the Northern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou suffered from drought, epidemic and famine. Su Shi, then the satrap of Hangzhou, sympathized with the sufferings of the people and raised funds to set up an institute, called “Anle Institute”, becoming the first government-run hospital for the people in history and the predecessor of Hangzhou First Social Welfare Institute. Over thousands of years, although Anle Institute has become history, the goodness of human nature contained in it has never ceased and has been passed down to this day.
Hangzhou First Social Welfare Institute is the only welfare institution in Hangzhou that is supported by the government and undertakes the settlement of people without identification papers, a normal residence permit, and a source of income, orphans aged above 18 and homeless beggars. Nearly 85% of the service objects have mental, intellectual and physical disabilities and lack the ability to live independently. Most service objects will spend their whole life here, and this is their whole world. We hope to create a brand-new and caring home for these special people through advanced humanized design concepts.
Regional Culture
The project is located in Daguanshan Orchard, Pingyao Town, Yuhang District, Hangzhou. The site faces mountains on three sides, high in the east and low in the west, with a pond on the west side. According to the topographic trend, the base is divided into several platforms, which can solve the problem of height difference and control earthwork excavation and transportation. An administrative office area is set on the west side of the plot near the external road, while the east side of the plot is used as a living area with good privacy. In the middle of the plot, public service functions are designed in series. The overall layout is dynamic and static zoning, making it convenient for management. In landscape design, the path of rainwater collecting and flowing eastward on the mountain is kept, and is skillfully turned into an internal landscape of “winding water”. Taking water as a clue, streams stretching in various groups are connected in series and flow down into the lake.
Liangzhu Culture is the cultural heritage of the plot, and jade is the soul of Liangzhu Culture. We hope that the building and regional culture can establish a connection. The building design extracts the form symbol of inner circle and outer square of jade to form a harmonious and unified group on this basis. Referring to the gardening techniques of classical gardens, the buildings seem to be marked with ink while leaving blank, deducing Chinese classical architectural forms such as deep courtyard and waterside pavilion, and depicting the image of landscape ink rhyme. There are green mountains, forests and winding water. The form and layout of the buildings respect the original mountain shape, water potential and regional culture of the site, and dig out the inner beautiful scenery.
Humanistic Care
Garden-style spatial layout provides an opportunity for humanized design care. In the management mode, the design abandons the closed mode of solid wall enclosure in the past, and puts forward the semi-open mode enclosed by courtyards of “courtyard in courtyard”. The courtyard is taken as the center to form a management unit, the ground floor laid overhead, and the internal and external environment can echo each other. All individual buildings are connected together through corridors, which are convenient for access, daily management and use.
In the study of planes, we adopt the rectangular-ambulatory-plane layout. Stub-end type walkways are easy to form blind spots of sight and management, and cannot find unexpected situations of service objects in time. The rectangular-ambulatory-plane corridors can effectively prevent special people from getting lost, improve their sense of security when walking, and facilitate staff management.
Considering the humid environment in mountainous areas, the main living rooms are arranged on the second floor and above, the living spaces are arranged on the east, west and south sides to ensure sufficient sunshine, and the service and activity rooms are arranged on the north side. The overhead floor below serves as a semi-indoor activity space, and forms a variety of activity venues together with the outdoor activity space expanding outward. Service objects cannot only conduct activities at different floors, but also go down to the overhead floor for concentrated activities, which can meet different needs of use and management and break the impression that the old welfare institutes are closed and dull.
In the design of safety protection, it is hoped to change the deep-rooted impression of iron windows in the past, so that special people can enjoy the right of “freedom of scenery” in the rooms. The design replaces iron railings in the rooms with three-layer toughened laminated insulating glass windows, which cannot only ensure safety, but also bring the best landscape vision into the rooms. The glass opening fan is lined with Chinese flower grille, which is used as the decorative component of the facade and ensures safety protection. Transparent metal mesh is used as the fence in the overhead activity area on the ground floor, which fully ensures the smooth line of sight and eliminates the closed feeling of special people.
Summary
The degree of care for special populations implies the height of civilization development. Although the thousand-year-old Anle Institute has passed away, the initial goodness of people contained in it still lives vividly in people’s hearts. With humanistic care as its axis, Hangzhou First Social Welfare Institute embodies humanized design everywhere, and completes a dialogue across time and space. “Jade is beautiful stone.” Building mountains and rivers feeds the heart of jade. At every moment of dusk and sunset, everyone can see the light of human nature belonging to himself from afar.