St. James’ Settlement (SJS) was founded as a club for children in 1949. The club was originally operated in the temple of Northern King in Stone Nullah Lane, Wanchai. In 1960s, it started to extend its service group to teenagers, the elderly and those with mental health problems. Rooted in Wanchai, St. James’ has a close and deep relationship with the neighbourhoods for more than 50 years It is now one of the main NGO operating in Wanchai, which provides various services to different age groups.
SJS Wanchai Community Centre is one of the important indoor communal space in Wanchai. It is also the largest nongovernmental Centre funded by SWD in Hong Kong. In view of its unique character, the client requested to have a design not only to solve the existing functional and spatial problem, but also to provide the Centre with a new image closely linked with Wanchai. In order to allow more participations from the public on the design of renovation for the Community Centre, we also took part in seminar, presentation and workshop to communicate with the public so as to assist our understanding on their need and desire to the Centre.
Weaving Wanchai is the main idea for the design concept as it means to connect the Centre with Wanchai and its people in different dimension. Weaving is a textile craft in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced to form a fabric or cloth. It also symbolise the strong links made up by different small units, the people.
When the brief was first received, the objectives were stated as follows:
1. To abstract the image of Wanchai, which link up the history of SJS with the neighbourhood
2. To allow flexibility in the use of spaces so as to fa ciliate the different operation of Center from time to time as well as to allow daily intercourse among different age groups.
3. To allow public participation in the future to personalise their space by changing some elements.