Osage Voices

APPROACH & MANIFESTO

Osage City is a small tight-knit community with immense pride for the place they call home. With family being elementary for those living within, it is clear that Osage is a community of people who care. With the aim of connecting to these very people, we decided that our approach must be to use our voice to connect to the voices who matter – Osage Voices. The proposal aims to bring people together to share tales of the past, ambitions for the future and everything in between, it aspires to connect these locals with visiting lodgers through education, activities and the transfer of time, knowledge, and friendship

Aiming to address the throwaway nature of modern construction, the proposal will re-use existing grain bins in their entirety and utilise any leftover material by creating furniture for within. Wanting to utilise the entirety of the steel grain bins, this proposal began the design process by breaking the silo into its components in order to gain an understanding of its construction, but also to understand the amount of material available. As you can see in the “Grain Bins” exploded drawing, the bin’s components can be dismantled and reused.

We began to research into Osage City with a focus on those who live there. It became clear from this research that the already small population (2,785 people as of 2020) has been gradually decreasing year on year. We contacted many residents with the hope of understanding local issues and we were fortunate to hear the voices of the community. We made several approaches (online survey, targeted social media posts and messages) to initiate communication with different voices of Osage. The responses gathered about local needs became influential to our core approach regarding dialogue, education, and entertainment, translated into our programme, to propose an infrastructure designed for and with the town of Osage City and its community.

URBAN STRATEGY

Urban Issues – Having researched the area, it is clear that whilst Osage City may have community spirit in abundance the area is lacking many amenities including restaurants with just eight found locally. This is something our proposal addresses acting as a public space to gather, dine and communicate. The ambition on a larger scale would be to expand to future sites lacking local services in order to help build the city in a sustainable, community focused way. Similar Spaces – Within Osage City, there are a limited number of spaces which allow for large indoor gatherings with exception to churches throughout the city. For larger outdoor public gatherings, the sports field provides a space for this but with that said it is on the fringe of the city.

Local Impact – Using locally sourced materials from companies such as “Orbis Plastics”, “Osage Salvage & Recycling” & “Hamm Quarry” we aim to minimise our carbon footprint whilst also stimulating the local economy. By collaborating with local companies this allows for greater community engagement. This is something we wish to build on by creating partnerships with the local education and care facilities to increase engagement with our proposal. We aim to use Orbis Plastics for furniture, windows, doors & columns. The local salvage and recycling centre will be used if any metal is required but also to sell any excess material during construction or deconstruction. Hamm Quarry will supply sand and stone for foundations and also for making rammed earth and stone masonry flooring to avoid the use of concrete.

CONCEPT & DESIGN

We began the design process by placing the initial 12 grain bins uniformly on the site. They did not fit. This led us to overly the bins onto the site allowing for an initial outline to form. The inner overlapping circles began to form interesting spaces which we decided to utilise. Following this move, a process of subtraction followed where walls were removed to create spaces, as determined by the competition brief and in response to the Voices of Osage. Leftover material from this exercise has been repurposed as either structural elements or items of furniture. This ensures that we are acting in the most sustainable way possible, aiming to minimize waste.

The layout provides an open planned public ground floor with an auditorium, workshop and cafeteria for activities and events. The first-floor links the public ground floor with the private second floor which is dedicated for living areas with communal kitchen/dining area. The roof houses a rooftop garden with views looking over Osage City’s skyline.