Community Hub
Aja Rose Teelock

Description:
A new genre of public infrastructure which encorporates the three elements of public open space, community services and facilities and a natural black and grey water treatment system [BGT] prototype. The [BGT] is an environmentally sound alternative to standard waste treatment which is currently inadequate. The [Community Hub] improves the standard of living for the catchment population of Urban Villages by providing these services in a single piece of infrastructure which is designed to cater for the future new developments which will share and eventually over the neighbourhood.
At a master plan level the prototype is implemented along a ‘Green Vein’ which fills the gap in the existing Xiamen green network. The Green Vein is subdivded into neighbourhoods based on 15 minute walking distances, each of these 5 neighbourhoods coincide with 5 water treatment systems and 5 [Community Hubs].

Branding:
The integration of the 3 elements of the [Community Hubs] reinforces their value to the local comunity and their role in the urban fabric of Xiamen, while allowing international funding to benefit its poorest communities.

Earth:
The integration of water treatment with planted spaces will work towards the reestablishment of local ecology within the urban fabric. This will also reduce the ‘Heat Island Effect’.

Flow:
The master plan strategy and local level implimentation strategy allows for the prototype to fucntion as a system at two diferent timescales between which the urban context is dramatically changed and developed.

Incorporation:
Incentives for Developers allows for aquisition of the [Community Hub] land, funding for the construction of the buildings, treatment and landscape from international investment, after which the prototype is self financing.