University of the West of England: Department of Architecture and the Built Environment

摘要

Porridge Yard proposes a Confucius Institute that specialises in education and support for excluded young people. The holistic programme aims to tackle the burgeoning issue of juvenile re-offending, while questioning the role of a public institution. The courtyard typology explores the notion of the inhabited wall, with spaces that offer diverse uses, carved out of a thick earth structure that frames a courtyard garden. The monolithic facade and deep openings reference the elevations of the sandstone caves that run along the site boundary. Porridge Yard is a generous civic building: its built form and programme encourages engagement with its neighbours and the wider city, pedestrian paths follow desire lines through the site and the thick walls offer nooks to sit in, as well as housing a community pizza oven. Joe Franklin's project has taken the broader studio theme of a Confucius Institute and contextualised this both socially in terms of the expansion of the programme to include elements of sanctuary and reflection for those who have found themselves excluded from society and in its physical relationship to its harbourside site. Joe works with craft and precision in the execution of imagery and models to develop an evocative atmosphere for the project.