Bamiyan Cultural Center

 

 

   PROJECT CONCEPT

 

     Bamiyan Cultural center

 

               To design this project as a cultural center in Afghanistan we started to define culture and constituents which are carved through history.  Also other factors through this history have helped to shape this country’s culture which is Tribes, Rituals and Tradition and etc.

 These maters woven together will create a strong united rope which is the culture of Afghanistan.

This structure of Afghanistan’s culture became the concept of our design.

• History line

Going through each elements of Afghanistan culture, takes us on a journey which at the end we will understand this culture of the country. The people history line as a design element will starts at the entrance gate of the cultural center and will continues to different building spaces. Afghanistan has so many turns and twists in its history. From the 1747 and its UNIFINE and 1919 British war to 1989 civil war, 1995 Taliban attack until it reaches the end part of the building which represent peace and new era in Afghanistan history (2015). This has influenced us in the concept design of this element. We have designed a simple and modern water sculpture with Afghanistan flag colors lighting at the end part to present this concept.

• Tribes line

Another woven line in our design will represent the variety of ethnic and lingual tribes in this country’s culture among them Pashtuns, Tajik, Hazara , Ozbek , Aimaq , Turkemen and Baluchis.

 

 

 

• Rituals line

There are more than 30million people with different believes living in peace in Afghanistan, Majority of them are Muslims Rituals line woven with history and ethnic with their traditions will give birth to this cultural center.

 

This building can be the start point of the future of Afghan culture. Through the life of this country, different languages, activities, beliefs, arts, knowledge has combined together to form a rich variable tradition values. Their exceptional music, painting, writings, sports and handcrafted items introduce exclusive style of this country.

 

DESIGN

• Site

To design on this site plan, we decided to manage the spaces with their relation together in a linier combination. The culture structure lines which, each has a functional and structural role to play, are came together to create this beautiful Afghan culture symphony. The level differences in the site, led us to use low gradient ramps to lead visitors to observe all parts of complex without noticing.

 In the landscape design our team decided to use concreate rings (which are used to hold water wells wall), to prevent landslides and to be used as flower boxes.

 

 

 

 

 

• Material

Regarding to the available materials in the region, we used brick walls mostly to define our spaces.  Concrete shells are playing the role of continues ramps and roof slopes to hold on unite parts of building together as one.

There are curved lines to lead cars and pedestrian to the entrance hall of the complex which continues with a smooth ramp through museum and reach to a lower level in the gallery exhibition hall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The exhibition hall is connected to the storage (which has its own loading area at the back with truck access) and private research center. It’s also connected to the café and view point area by an exclusive pedestrian walk way. This view point area platform works as central gathering space in design which is connected to landscape and education spaces. The multipurpose hall is located at the end of the building to avoid any disturbance to the exhibition part. To make the whole site alive we put two of the most crowded spaces at the two ends of the design line. We also have provided two entrances for the site the north entrance from bazaar which is only available for pedestrian and it is close to the multipurpose hall. The other one is at the south east, from the STONE Road. This is available for vehicles and pedestrian and it is close to the main entrance hall and exhibition spaces.

 

The spaces between concreate surface and brick walls in the education and office zone are to be used as windows with high elevated level. This prevents distraction and to lighten the space. We also used a courtyard in the education block to give corridors natural light and green feeling. This helped us to avoid the need of artificial light during day time. Same principles are used in parts of the exhibition. This block also allows natural light to enter from the ceiling.

We used green roof for research center to create pleasant visual area for the pedestrians who walk on the path way near it and to control inside temperature of this zone.

The ceiling of the multipurpose hall (amphitheater) is to be covered with wide span wooden truss system and light weight metal sheets.

The future extension of the building expected to be located next to the main entrance hall and exhibition block, accordingly landscape is designed.

May this cultural center becomes a key point in rebuilt of Afghanistan culture.