Project: General Directorate of Forestry Training Centre
Architects: Aura Design Studio
Location: Karabakh, Azerbaijan
Area: 112,881 sf
Year: 2022
Photographs by: Courtesy of Aura Design Studio
The General Directorate of Forestry Karabakh Training Center in Azerbaijan has been designed as an education complex with a fragmented, clear and simple silhouette by Aura Design Studio.
The Forestry Training Center of the General Directorate of Forestry, which is located in the Karabakh region in Azerbaijan, has been designed as an educational complex that focuses on socialization with its design that proposes a fragmented, clear and simple silhouette. As the ensemble with a total construction area of 10,487 square meters brings together functions such as forestry training areas, laboratories, a guesthouse, social facility and a pentathlon field; it was also designed to meet the educational, research and social needs of the city in the field of forestry.
Steel and timber construction systems is applied to the site, as the selection of materials and structural systems was guided by the necessity of transporting all construction elements from Turkey, All building materials are designed as modular structural components and all structures are regulated within five meters grid systems in all blocks. In the forestry education campus; In order to bring wooden products to the fore, timber products were used in material selection including timber columns, compact timber façade panels, timber shutter systems, timber coatings in the interior, acoustic timber coatings and timber landscape elements.
Emphasis has been placed on a design strategy that enables access to the training center from different levels by turning the challenging topography of the land into an advantage. The site plan and building relations are divided into four main sections – the laboratory, conference hall, social facility and guest house blocks – and positioned to form a multi-layered and permeable mass composition.
The entrance building that connects the lower and upper levels contains administrative units, meeting rooms, offices, classrooms, a conference hall, a foyer area and a museum-exhibition area. The conference hall block and the administrative-education block, located on the right and left side of the main courtyard, have been transformed into a semi-open reception area with a roof covering both blocks. It is primarily connected to the lower level with the amphitheater stairs and is cultivated with the social facility at the lower level and floor functions of both blocks. The block where the conference hall, foyer and museum are located receives entrance to the conference hall from both floors with the upper main entrance and the basement floor foyer. At the same time, the foyer area, which opens to the inner courtyard, is positioned parallel to the social facility block, creates an authentic counterpoint in the spacious courtyard. In the section reserved for the museum, it is planned to exhibit the military ammunition and remains from this region after the war. In the administrative block to the right of the courtyard, the building comprises administrative offices as well as education classrooms opening to the lower level courtyard and the social facilities of these classrooms.
The ground floor functional scheme consists of open office volumes and restaurant that allow common and wide-ranging uses in the social facility that meets the stairs with the central pond. On the lower level, there is the kitchen, warehouse, technical areas and shelter working together with the service courtyard.
Connections between buildings, alternative social spaces that offer open, semi-open and closed are designed by evaluating user needs. The laboratory structure has programs that are required to work independently of each other and serve different functions in the lower and upper levels. Seed laboratories are located on the ground floor, while laboratories for predators and beneficial insects are located on the basement floor. In this way, it offers more isolated and secluded places for work.
Located to the left of the entrance building; the guesthouse, which is divided into two branches from a main body, welcomes its guests from the main body courtyard floor. From the entrance hall, the stairs and elevators leads visitors up towards the rooms on the left and right wings through reception and lobby spaces. The branches extending in the east and west directions include nine 1+0 and eight 1+1 type accommodation units on each floor. Each room offers semi-open, functional and flexible spaces with terraces and wooden sliding shutter systems.
The training center has been designed to be barrier-free, integrative, and inclusive. Disabled entrances, parking lots, toilets and elevators have been part of the design. The training campus, which has a very dense program, has a 7000 square meters Pentathlon field for forest fire fighting training. The observation points, where the pentathlon field in the east offers panoramic views, are an alternative interaction space for users and training units. Karabakh Forestry Training Center integrates with an architectural language both through the distribution of space that allows different training techniques, and the relations it establishes with the topography and nature surrounding it.
-Project description and images provided by pRchitect
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