BA (Hons) Architecture

Hira Khan

Biography

Art has always been an important part of my life, and I’ve fully embraced it in my work as an architectural student, which has motivated me to continue down this road. I believe architecture should be an ever-present form of visual storytelling. The space’s architecture and functioning should convey the site’s rich history to visitors. My architectural journey investigated how memories bind us to a place. I saw how place can evoke diverse memories and affect individuals from different backgrounds. As much as the smell of mud and dust reminds me of my home in Pakistan, as if it was some sort of heaven, on the other hand, the dust and earthy smell would create suffocation for the people of black country due to the dark history of coal mining. It’s all about what we encounter in specific location and what knowledge we extract from it, which results in various stories for different people. As said by Donna Haraway, the feminist and post-modernist scholar, “It matters what thoughts think thoughts. It matters what knowledges know knowledges. It matters what relations relate relations. It matters what worlds world worlds.” (Staying with the trouble: making kin in the Chthulucene, Donna Haraway, 2016)

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Entrance from level 0 to an underground archive of smells and tales from across the globe - designed to be used for a variety of purposes, similar to a free open area; includes a storage facility for natural materials linked to an above-ground workshop. Then it's up to the second level, where people may tell stories by sculpting them out of natural materials like wood or clay, which will be stored in a gallery adjacent to the workshop, which can be accessed from all sides, from the workshop to the reception, or directly from the woodland. The journey continues to the first level, where there is an open area and a dedicated classroom where individuals from all backgrounds may study, teach, or share about their backgrounds' skills. This level features a conference room that is also accessible from the second floor; it is a floor devoted to a help line, where persons who are having problems settling in the UK may obtain assistance and participate community meetings.

Proposing to design archive of earth - a multi-cultural centre that brings individuals from many backgrounds and nations together to express themselves and share stories about their homelands, to experience what the earth means to them, what it smells like, and what memories it evokes. - UNDERGROUNG - Come together & Preserve , GROUND FLOOR - Create & Celebrate, FIRST FLOOR - Share & Learn, SECOND FLOOR - Meet & Help

BELOW THE GROUND - Preserving stories - Let The Walls Tell The Tales ! - The Black Country Multi- Cultural Centre's archive wall will be covered with memorial clay tiles produced by locals or anybody from across the world who want to add their memories to the archive.

CONCEPT - SMELL OF DUST - Going underground - depicting The Black Country coal mining history and smelling dust to evoke memories of people interacting with the earth

SECTION - THE CONNECTION BETWEEN LEVELS - Demonstrating the depth of each room as well as the connection between levels through the light tunnel, which is a representation of a coal pits ( Black Country coal mining history).

ELEVATION - And the Interior Program Continues Reflecting on the Exterior Façade - Built from rammed earth, the Multi-Cultural Centre aims for a sensation of earth and going underground by merging it with the landscape.

EXTERIOR VISUAL - Communal Area - An autumn evening where people go about and feel at ease, surrounded by the smell of woods and earth. - When all the leaves have fallen, the stems will be trimmed to create a medium for people to tell the tales with, and the wood flakes will become nourishment for the earth.

ABOVE7 BELOW THE GROUND - ENTRANCES - The Multi-Cultural Centre is meant to make you feel as though you're walking through a tunnel. Based on memories of underground mining and the stories that minors had left behind in the black country.

BELOW THE GOUND - Drawing on the archive wall's clay tiles - a free space where people may express themselves by drawing what they're feeling or recalling memories in order to tell their past tales. “Visual storytelling of one kind or another has been around since cavemen were drawing on the walls.” - Frank Darabont

ABOVE THE GROUND - The sense of emerging into the earth was investigated using mass models to demonstrate how the geometry of the layers changes and how a sloping roof gets shaped into the surroundings.

ABOVE THE GROUND - GALLERY SPACE - Temporary preservation of the Tales - Paintings and sculptures created by the individuals in the archive below and the workshop adjacent to the gallery - a space dedicated to honouring the stories conveyed by people all over the globe through art.

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