Le Uyen Minh Tran

Rice is Philippines’ staple food. When natural disasters hit the country, rice production is jeopardised. In order to restart rice production post-disaster, rice seeds are necessary. However, the availability and quality of seeds are not always adequate for this purpose. The robustness of Philippines’s seed system is essential to ensure the stability of seed resources in the country. This is not achievable without the collaboration between farmers and scientists. Despite having the same goal of producing seeds, they seldom work together. 

In this thesis, I aim to address their disconnection through an architectural point of view. I propose a rice seed exchange centre in Tacloban, to create a space where farmers and scientists work together and share the same spaces. Through the design process, I examined the proposal based on Jan Gehl’s writings about building up human contact from passive seeing and hearing to active interaction. As I design the centre, I realised utilising Gehl’s thinking of flexible boundary answers both the social and physical requirements. Within the context of a tropical country, flexible boundary can mean stripping away the walls. This allows farmers and scientists become aware of each other’s work, which potentially means better interaction between the two. For the physical condition, because there are no walls, natural ventilation can be used to minimise the structure’s temperature and humidity. This is beneficial for seed preservation purposes.