Ger Innovation Hub in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia by Rural Urban Framework

A community centre designed by Rural Urban Framework in the capital of Mongolia is a confluence of tradition and innovation

Over the course of the car ride from Ulaanbaatar city centre to the Ger Innovation Hub, on the fringes of the Mongolian capital, visitors witness a dramatic change in topography: the grid of wide, shadeless streets packed with traffic transforms into haphazardly winding single‑lane roads that encircle hills in a labyrinth of twists, turns and dead ends. Grey Soviet‑era apartment buildings turn into low single‑storey homes and eventually plots of land dotted with squat concrete‑block buildings and gers – commonly referred to as ‘yurts’. 

Gers – cylindrical structures made of wooden poles covered in felt – were designed for their portability. As rural populations have migrated towards Ulaanbaatar seeking educational and employment opportunities, gers have been erected permanently on plots of land, creating growing districts that lack adequate access to water, sanitation, education and means of pollution control. GerHub – an Ulaanbaatar‑based non‑profit founded in 2016 by Badruun Gardi and Enkhjin Batjargal – collaborated with Hong Kong‑based architectural research centre Rural Urban Framework (RUF) to construct the Ger Innovation Hub, a space designed for community engagement and innovation in Ulaanbaatar’s Songinokhairkhan district in 2019.

‘Now that the people in the ger districts are permanent urban dwellers, we needed something that was reflecting that change in society,’ says Joshua Bolchover, RUF director and a co‑designer of the Ger Innovation Hub. Since the 1990s, migration towards Ulaanbaatar has accelerated as increasingly harsh winters have devastated livestock, making rural life difficult. Many residents of Ulaanbaatar’s ger areas have lived there for two or three generations, and while some still reside in the traditional structures, many have erected small houses made of wood, bricks and concrete blocks. 

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Songinokhairkhan, one of many rapidly growing ger areas that surround Ulaanbaatar, and which are now home to nearly 60 per cent of the city’s population, has experienced rapid population growth during the last two decades. Seasonal movement and nomadic herding – traditions historically associated with Mongolia’s cultural heritage – have been disrupted by rapid urbanisation and settlement in these areas. Residents of ger areas have reckoned with a variety of transitions, chiefly the inability to practise herding due to limited space on the plots of land in semi‑urban ger districts.

The transmutation from expansiveness to restriction has resulted in unexpected challenges as well as opportunities. Increasing population density has strained the ger areas’ developing infrastructure, but communal living has offered new opportunities for collaboration and co‑operation. ‘In the Mongolian language, the word “community” doesn’t exist,’ says Gardi. ‘There’s no history of living in such a crowded space with other people.’

The Ger Innovation Hub – irregularly hexagonal in shape when viewed from above – offers a spacious and dynamic convergence point for community members to gather. It was created to function as an open space through which communities can discuss and express their needs, and collaborate to take ownership of solutions. The structure’s form mirrors its purpose: four of the six walls contain origami‑like elements that can be folded and opened, allowing free movement into and out of the building. Mechanisms appropriated from garage doors allow walls to slide upwards and compress against the ceiling, and Dutch doors, which can be opened partially or completely, enable walls to be transformed into windows and doors. The outermost walls, constructed from translucent polycarbonate sheets, allow natural light to enter and create a liminal atmosphere within the first ring of the building.

The Ger Innovation Hub’s typology looks both strikingly modern and surprisingly familiar amid neighbouring gers – a deliberate design choice achieved by borrowing structural elements from the traditional dwelling type. ‘We were fascinated by its form,’ Bolchover says, ‘particularly in the layered structure – it has an inner timber frame and lattice work, which is then covered by felt as a kind of insulation layer. Finally, it is all wrapped in canvas as a kind of waterproof layer.’ The Ger Innovation Hub’s chamfered corners replicate the cylindrical shape of a ger, and its inner structure deconstructs the layers to create a ‘ger within a ger’. Bolchover explains that the design team ‘pulled those layers apart; through creating these buffer zones between the layers, these spaces could actually be inhabited’. By reconceptualising the traditional model and expanding the scale, Ger Innovation Hub accommodates a greater number of visitors and a greater breadth of activities and purposes.

The structure’s cavernous interior contains an outer ring, which houses planters containing tomatoes and other fruit‑bearing plants. At its centre, its endoskeleton – a mud brick floor and pillars – conveys permanence, anchoring the structure to the earth and dividing the interior into parts while maintaining its openness. Books and art supplies occupy shelves, illustrations and paper cut-outs hang from strings that bisect the room, and chairs arranged in a circle indicate the presence of a past or future presentation. The room hosts a variety of free classes, including instruction in horticulture, business development and various on home and property upkeep – and also acts as a planning space for community projects. 

According to Jersey Poon, project architect for RUF, the Ger Innovation Hub’s solidity functions as an asset and signals progress towards establishing a pillar around which the community can gather and grow. ‘It is actually permanence that seems to be what is prized,’ Poon says. ‘It is about trying to reorganise and resettle, but giving everyone a sense of permanence.’ 

In contrast to its set location, the Ger Innovation Hub design offers nearly infinite opportunities for reconfiguration and modification, serving as metaphor for the versatility and mobility of gers. Polycarbonate – a flexible material that has the ability to expand and contract in extreme temperatures without cracking – demonstrates the resilience that is needed to endure the severe weather, including winter storms and flooding, that is common in the craggy terrain surrounding Ulaanbaatar during the majority of the year. Designing a building that can close up when temperatures drop allows the space to offer warmth and shelter from the elements during all seasons.

‘In the winter, you cannot be outside for more than a few minutes, but when you go inside the hub, there is that space which is getting all the nice solar radiation,’ Bolchover explains. Temperatures drop from November to March, reaching as low as ‑40°C – and during this period, pollution in Ulaanbaatar’s ger areas spikes due to increased use of coal to heat personal gers. ‘Many people spend most of their day in the ger itself, so to find an alternative place to go – just to play Lego, read a book, or do a bit of gardening – was important for us.’

Bolchover says that while the design for the Ger Innovation Hub is climatically distinct, elements of its concept – particularly the creation of double‑enveloped spaces – could be reclaimed for future projects to create low‑cost, sustainable community centres in other contexts using climate‑appropriate material. Sustainability is one of the Ger Innovation Hub’s crowning features: the structure itself was built using low‑cost materials that were locally sourced, and community members contributed design elements, participated in its construction, and helped choose the location for the building. ‘It being community-built was a very important part,’ Poon says. 

‘From my neighbours, I learnt how to germinate seeds, take care of seedlings and grow different kinds of vegetables’

New structural elements have been added to Ger Innovation Hub over the years, which are a direct reflection of how the community’s relationship to the space has developed. Its amphitheatre was used to host collective discussions about how to best use the community space and incorporate landscaping and gardening to create green spaces. This initiative drew considerable interest. ‘As I was driving up to the hub, I saw a bunch of people with shovels and equipment in hand’ says Azbayar. ‘I nearly cried because I didn’t expect that.’

Community members took on leadership roles, incorporating their knowledge of specific plants into the placement of saplings and hedges. After the launch of a community gardening programme at the Ger Innovation Hub, a drainage pipe was added to the building’s roof to capture rainwater for the trees and garden. Increased engagement among community members led to further expansion of programming, including an entrepreneurial programme through which families participate in community‑based tourism by leading visitors through the ger areas and highlighting local arts and culture.

Sambuu Urtnasan, who has lived in the ger district for more than 25 years, first heard about the Ger Innovation Hub when his daughter attended a community meeting about potential income opportunities through hosting tourists. She was eventually hired as the full‑time community manager, and Urtnasan’s involvement with the hub grew. He helped plant trees around the centre, and has also participated in a gardening programme where he learnt how to use scrap materials to build greenhouses. ‘From my neighbours and the team, I learned how to germinate seeds, take care of seedlings and grow different kinds of vegetables,’ he explains. ‘I met many of my neighbours and interacted with many children of the area – it brings me lots of joy to see them learn and grow.’

Bolchover wants to replicate the Ger Innovation Hub’s design in other ger areas, and expects that each centre will develop differently depending on the needs of the individual community. ‘The idea is to work with GerHub on creating more scalable community centres,’ Bolchover says, ‘but also for GerHub to create a manual of how you could begin to self‑organise as a community.’ In the meantime, Bolchover expects to see the residents of the 31st and 43rd Khoroos – the two subdistricts within Songinokhairkhan that access the space – continue to shape the physical space of Ger Innovation Hub. ‘It is never a finished project,’ Bolchover says, ‘but it is this sort of incompleteness that we are interested in.’