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The Yangshuo Impressions Sanjie Liu seats itself in one of the most dramatic landscapes in China. A blanket of greenery surrounds the site filling space between large karst towers of rock. With a landscape so grand, any attempt to dismiss it, let alone compete makes little sense. With this understanding, it was decided that the natural elements themselves would form the premise for what architecture would inhabit the site, one element in particular, bamboo.

The Impression Sanjie Liu is already well established, now in its 15th year of operation. This presented a situation where most existing structures would remain untouched. Instead focus was shifted to how new intervention could support a pre-existing condition. At present, large clusters of bamboo cover most of the site, creating walls and roofs of mingling pipes and leaves. The concept looks at borrowing the materiality of the bamboo, reconfiguring it to form new space. In doing so, this new space aims to in no way challenge, rather its intention is to augment, albeit very gently, the surrounding bamboo groves and hills.

Currently, there are two main areas of interest for the guest, one at either end of the lengthy island site. The first, the front gate and pagoda where guests enter and can wait. At the other end, the main stage, perched at the bank of the Li river. However, between these two points remained little interaction. It is here in this middle ground that two assemblies of architecture are introduced. The first, woven bamboo lantern structures, scattered where guests circulate, whose purpose is to guide and intrigue. The second, a stretch of canopy amongst clusters of bamboo, providing area to walk sheltered from regular rainfall. In these, the architecture relies on bamboo not only for its composition, but also its constant referral to sentiment of place.

Near the entry of the site, the lanterns begin small in stature, casting out signals of dappled light through their porous facades. Further in they become incrementally larger to a point where the guest can enter. Here, following the suspense of only viewing, features of the lantern can be experienced from both the inside and out. The makeup of the lanterns remains sincere, with a structure of lashed bamboo that is enclosed in a hand-woven mesh either side, the exterior coarser than the linear weaving inside. To the southern edge of the island the canopy shrouds itself within the massive masts of bamboo. At first glance, it appears to rely on little for support, only the columns of bamboo shooting up and through openings above. The ceiling takes on a shape of an inverted landscape, undulating between different levels of surfaces. The stepping surface of the canopy is covered entirely in irregular hand-woven bamboo, the intention to enchant while still extending recognition to the natural condition of the site.

In acknowledgment to the theatrical spirit of the Impressions Sanjie Liu, moments of performance make its way into many parts of the design: The hand weaving, bamboo playing off the tension of one another. The topography of the canopy ceiling dancing between columns of bamboo as if unsupported. Even the way guests are intended to move from lantern to lantern, in a narrative of interaction. Together these subtle hints encourage a particular frame of mind, readying the guest for the main feature.

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镜
在一号场地，一个微微下凹的圆盘置于河道中间。
晴天雨天，圆盘的积水或浅或深。
雨后的桥面成为巨大的镜子，被天空填满。

光
二号场地，厚重的墙将天空压成细细一道光。
在窄窄的桥上，通过光感知变化的时间和季节。

默
在三号场地，以一种谦逊的姿态连接两岸。
桥体结构简单轻盈，消隐在环境中。
四周变化的环境是主角，桥是默默的剧场。

A site of heated artistic discourse and creative force
A platform of contesting voices and diverse tongues
A place of spontaneous responses and open counterblasts
一个创作者思想碰撞的场所，允许各种思想进驻其中
一个作品表达的平台，给予先锋语言平等发声权利
一个参观者自由论战的场所，尊重不同观点态度产生

Power Station of Art 5th floor is stating the attitude of contemporary art
free, open, equal and democratic
PSA展览馆5层作为常设展厅的同时也在表达对当代艺术态度
民主，自由，平等，开放

Un-wall the walled and eliminate the hierarchy of space
突破原有空间界限，将原本的空间层级消除，创造一个更加开放的场所

Spotlights on the distinct conversations between art work and beholder
尊重作品与参观者的对话方式，使作品和参观者平等交流的同时成为展览空间的主角

A Space for all
重塑艺术的权利

Void, yes, maybe.
Sometimes filling an imaginary hole can be as satisfactory as eating a croissant.
You asked for a plan, so how long will you wait to build it?
One or the other.

Bon Appétit.

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# LOADING #

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“三卅”，原名“第三故乡”，意指为一种特殊人群而创造的第三种社会空间，以帮助他/她们找寻属于自己的那一种舒适距离及精神氛围。项目便以这样的初衷，在距慕田峪长城步行四十分钟左右的一块面积约为2000平方米的原村落燃气站空地上开始。
“San Sa”, formerly named as “The Third Hometown”, refers to a social space created for a introspective group of people who seek a space away from everyday life to recharge the mind, body, and spirit. The project is situated on a 2,000-square-meter unused plot of land, which was originally occupied by a gas station and about forty minutes' walk from the Mutianyu Great Wall.

项目原本的设想是在这个被多个国际知名媒体评为中国十大最美村落的地方，围一座应有尽有的乡村绿洲，为拜访者提供所谓回忆里已流逝的生活点滴。可这样的温故，对底蕴哪里有半点的尊重，于是，我们延续了村庄现有的空间排列肌理，依然是一座建筑，将屋顶按村落格局打碎，创造了更融入的空间规律与秩序。颠覆掉千篇一律的乡村度假村的观念，希望用一种衍生的村中村的概念，给予这片土地应有的生命力。
The original idea of the project was to build an inclusive rural oasis in a place that has been selected as one of China's top ten most beautiful villages by a number of internationally renowned media. The aim is to provide visitors with a spatial and sensory experience that evokes personal renewal, inpart by reflecting on the imagined memory of lives past. To embed within the design an appreciation for the site‘s heritage, we extended the existing spatial arrangement of the village, scattering the architectural blocks in-line with the typical village plan, while combining those blocks into an integrated whole. This approach enabled us to create a spatial pattern and order that blends rather seamlessly into the local built environment. By subverting the stereotypical concept of rural tourism resorts, we hope to create a kind of "village within a village" and to give this piece of land the vitality it deserves.

远见不谋而合，村中村的概念便开始经历长达四年有余的生长过程。
The visions happened to coincide; the concept of "village within village" began to develop, growing throughout the design and construction process of more than four years.

设计。遵从整体现有村落的建筑基本元素及体量分区，并在细节上做出简化处理，以便于在呈现的过程中能够让本地的资源得以运用，又可以在整体韵律上，让过滤下来的感受与现实生活的节奏能找到一些贯穿的感受。
Design. This project complies with the basic elements and volume division of the original village, and aims to simplify architectural details in order to facilitate the use of local resources. The design emerges through this process, informed in part, by the overall rhythm and pace of real life, and through a lived experience of the building site.

材料。在北京的特殊大环境下，建筑材料的选择，制作，运输，都使建设的过程变得极为困难。所以我们尽可能的就地取材，材料以真实为本，不推崇装饰主义，以本真的形式展现。让风吹日晒的自然现象使材料更显底蕴。老石板的景观地面铺装，私院的渗水红砖，建筑墙根的石砖连接，建筑墙体的红砖青砖的搭配使用，却让相对凝重的材料特性及建筑几何形态的庄重感，呈现出了悠闲又安静的感觉。
Materials. Within the particular environment of Beijing, the selection, production and transportation of building materials posed many challenges throughout construction. Therefore, we tried our best to use local materials that were authentic and readily available, without introducing ornamental or decorative elements. Observing the natural phenomenon of the wind and the sun helped to reveal the hidden wisdom and beauty of the materials. The old slate as the landscape pavement, the porous red brick in the private courtyard, the stone brick joints at the building wall base, and the collocation of red brick and blue brick used for building walls, all together made the relatively impressive material characteristics and the dignity of the architectural geometry present a feeling of leisure and quietness.

实现。整个建造的过程，就是不断的尝试，自我追求，自我推翻的成长过程。村里的房子，只有了本地村民的参与，才会有它真正的根，才能真正融入成为村落生活的一部分。建造团队的搭建，充分融合了现代的管理和村民的实践，从建筑的设计，制图，沟通，到制作样品，现场测试，纠错，重新理解，再制作，反反复复的尝试，使整个团队，形成了一种共同的价值观，这种自我追求的理想型价值观，也许是实现过程中，最值得提及并对建筑设计的实现有最根本的帮助的因素。
Realization. The whole process of building became a growing process of constant trial, self-pursuit and self-subversion. Only with the participation of local villagers can village houses find their real roots and become truly integrated into the village life. The construction team was fully integrated with modern management and local villagers' practices. From architectural design, drawings and communication, to production samples, on-site testing, error correction, re-understanding, re-production, and repetitive attempts, the entire team came to form common values. The entire team‘s commitment to these idealistic values may be the most fundamental to the realization of San Sa.

细节。此项目的细节，在我们看来，一定不如纸笔上展示的理想，但这里的细节，理性设计的初衷与主观惰性思维上的捏合所经历的过程，及通过矛盾，抵触，沟通，学习，之后在结果未知情况下的实验性尝试，这些过程所产生的协调性/妥协性的细节呈现，才是“三卅”最吸引人的细节。
Details. The details of this project, in our view, certainly cannot be as good as the ideals rendered by the pen on the paper. However, the coordination and compromise in the details are produced by the process of integrating the intention of rational design with the subjectivity of in-situ thinking. Indeed, the most attractive details of San Sa are derived through the communication, contradictions, conflicts, and lessons that arise on site, and especially through subsequent experimental attempts in the case of unknown results.

不同文化背景的建筑师，用经历和理想，精确规划细节，实施团队，从 “一般我们不这么做，一般我们这么做”，到手绘重新理解节点，至制作呈现；从学习线条的平齐，到理解随意的拼接，到最后觉得不够完美希望继续尝试改进；这样的变化，是所有建筑细节中，我们觉得最欣慰的一点。
Architects with different cultural backgrounds used their experience and vision to precisely plan the details. The attitude of the construction team changed from "typically we don't do this, typically we do this," to a new understanding of joints and connections through hand drawing and through the meticulous realization of the final production. From learning the proper alignment of materials to understanding randomized patterning, until by the end, feeling it was not perfect enough and spontaneously hoping to continue improving; this transformation was the most gratifying part for us among all the architectural details.

生态。设计的布局，目的在于使建筑，院落的生态，在北方却区别于北方，以人性为理解基本，从而一定程度上打破体验者传统的固有思维方式。文化与生活方式的延续当然是需要的，但是墨守成规的遵循和盲目发扬，却是没有意义的。我们希望用这种看似挑战在北方人与空间交流的舒适极限的方法，给这里的体验者带来另一种对于生活的思考。可以觉得这样的院落类似南方，可以觉得是南北建筑的混搭，也可以觉得这里私密性不够，更可以觉得它还掺杂了异域的元素，可是，也就是这样的思考，已经为这样的布局带来了具有自我批判行的生命力。
Ecology. The layout of the design aims to make the ecology of buildings and courtyards different from other typical buildings in North China. By responding to issues of human-scale and social interface in place-making, the project seeks to break the conventional 'mode of thought' for the Visitor. The continuation of culture and lifestyle is certainly necessary, but it is meaningless to conservatively follow the rules and blindly carry it forward. We hope to use this method, which seems to challenge the typical comfort zone for people living in the North to interact with space, and to bring the visitors another way of contemplating life. You can feel that the courtyards are similar to those in South China, or feel that they are a mixture of north and south buildings. You may feel that there is not enough privacy, but more likely, you may come to feel that the space offers some enticing exotic elements. In any case, this kind of thinking has already brought forward the vitality of self-reflection and a conscious engagement with the environment.

这种“院落邻里”的生态，也许是“三卅”能够帮助来这里的人们，重新审视生活，重新看待乡村建设的初衷和手段的一个最好的途径。
This kind of "courtyard neighborhood" ecology may be the best way for "San Sa" to help people who visit to re-examine their lives and to gain an appreciation for the original intention and method of rural construction.

远景。院景，也是远景。
当一看到乡村美景里矗立着一幢美好的建筑时，请不要太草率的立刻就提及放弃了什么，为了什么的千篇一律的禅意，也请不要再鲁莽的定义这是什么什么风格的建筑。禅，不是一个表象的词语，也请各位读者能够严肃的去理解和批判，这样才给了这些生命更加应得的尊重。
坐在院子里，当你不再觉得被这么亲近的邻居干扰，当你可以再次享受星空，当你竟然可以忘记时间却还坐在原地的时候，这就是“三卅”最美的时刻。
Vision. The courtyard scene is also a vision.
When you see a beautiful building standing in the beautiful countryside, please do not be too hasty to mention what has been given up for the Zen, which has become a cliché, or recklessly defined as merely an architectural style. Zen is not a superficial word, but requires more serious understanding and criticism, so as to give these lives more deserved respect.
Sitting in the yard, this is the most beautiful moment of "San Sa" when you no longer feel disturbed by close neighbors, when you can enjoy the stars again, when you are able to sit still in one place but forget about the time.

SpontaCeity
A Maximum of Activities and A Minimum of Architecture
[Tentative English name, Sponta-city, SpontaCeITY, or SpontaCeity, meaning “Spontaneity” + “City,” “Spontaneous City”]
[Tentative Chinese name，meaning + Living before Building]

Chengdu is unique among the vast pool of Chinese cities; it exuberates an exceptional liveliness and vibrancy. The citizens in Chengdu are masters of space-making: the figure and ground of the city fabric, as long as the lines between in and out, manmade and natural, are vigorously blurred by the locals.

Indoor and outdoor spaces are used indiscriminately. A section of tree-canopied sidewalk, a ma-jiang table, and four stools make the best recreational space. People move around furniture, objects of human-scale and at users’ disposal, to create informal outdoor “rooms,” layering a new iteration of openness to enclosed buildings, boldly manifesting a certain degree of indifference to the form or envelope of built structures, that makes them to be used more freely than one would expect.

The city, in its core, is shaped by its people. The exceptional vibe calls for a rethink over the role of architect and architecture in the phenomenon, leading to us renouncing the architect’s obsession with precision of control, and aiming for a type of architecture that does not restrict freedom of action, the freedom of movement that characterizes both contemporary culture and Chengdu spirit.

Thus, the SpontaCeity, a spontaneous field. It speaks to you all the possibilities of what you can do, instead of telling you what you shall do. The empowerment of users asks for a maximum of activities and a minimum of architecture: “Where there is nothing, everything is possible. Where there is architecture, nothing (else) is possible.” (Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau)

In order to stimulate pro-activity, sponsor autonomy, and promote the chance of serendipitous emergence, building is reduced to its very elemental form. Door, as the most interactive, the most respectful of human will and actions, and the most human-scaled among all the architectural elements, becomes the strategy of organizing space and channeling activities. The envelope, including roof, floor and wall, becomes an on/off mechanism that lags wills and motions, imposing no constraints over. As a result, building is dissolved to an interface, and the multitude of interfaces creates “a directed field within which multiple activities unfold.” (Stan Allen) This field functions simultaneously as one building and many buildings, vibrating between autonomy and connectivity.

Programs are reconfigured according to three categories of actions and interactions: the wonderous, the ponderous, and the amalgamational. They are strategically placed and mixed to provoke intense and positive reaction in people, not by physically pushing one against the other, but by devising the link while maintaining comfortable social distance.

Eventually, what we want to propose for Chengdu, a city with such endogenic power of space-making, is Measured Chaos or, in other words, Deliberative Spontaneity. The strategy, as we believe, transfers the city’s spirit at the center to its newly established frontier, promising an ideal future that is deeply rooted in the collective.

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We confronted the task of planning a Panda Theme Park within the natural preserved area of panda. The innate tension between the manmade and the natural, as long as the intrusive and the respectful, posed a deeper quest for the purpose of this piece of negotiated nature. At the intermediate zone between human settlement and natural habitat, the land has every potential to be an “infomediary” between people and nature, not only raising public awareness of this endangered species and its threatened haven but also generating earnest empathy and true understanding.

A very early on stance we took was the type of presence panda assumes. To use it as a symbol or an icon is a simple but shallow gesture. To encircle wild pandas within and to create a pseudo-natural habitat with protected human tracks seemed like a creditable and eco-friendly way to go; yet, the extreme sparse distribution of wild panda (0.072 panda per square kilometer according to 2015 panda census) renders this merely wishful, if not forcing. The solution also runs against the rule of ecological intervention, when it carves out the animals’ life resource instead of contributing to it.

“Panda” represents a way of living very integrated with and dependent upon the environment. The species migrates both vertically and horizontally from mountain tops and ridges to valleys and creeks, when they are sensitive to the seasonal and diurnal changes of wind, water, moisture, sound, light, and smell. Its specific relationship with and experience of nature are unknown to most.

By creating paths as non-intrusive extension of human settlement and strategically placing nodes of manmade structures within several selective natural conditions, the proposal puts visitors in the “shoes” of panda without enclosing either pandas or their habitat. One would experience walks on tree tops and nights in caves, feeling the wind, water, moisture, sound, light, and smell, engaging nature in ways sublime and humble.

The visitor center marks the entry. At the foot of the undulating hills, it peels off from the ground, revealing two slits of light to visitors approaching from the adjacent town, yet merging into the landscape while being looked back from the mountains.

By the first turn of the creek, one finds a field of canopies intermixed into the baldachins of trees. The manmade and the natural collectively form the resting space. Patches of shade and pockets of sunlight dance around through the day.

When the path leads further into the wild, translucent poles flank and direct the way. They grow denser when crossing the creek and taller when the road is steep. Some time they become lights and other framing views. Echoing woods and bamboos, they mark, guide and protect but never shut off.

At the end of the creek floats a cable car station. The station provides a panoramic view of the creek behind, the cliffs, and the forest beyond. It barely touches the cliffs to its sides, and the flat disk shape never obstructs the wind in the valley; with such strong presence, it still maintains permeability. From this point, one can choose to continue hiking or to take the cable cars - the buoyant and covert bubbles that float through waving leaves.

Cabins for overnight stays are the most grounded ones, partially buried in the earth and entered from the roof terrace. They distribute across a gentle slope on the mountaintop, each only accessible through private path. Opaque along one axis and transparent along the other, they are a section of the cave, providing scenic views and privacy at the same time.

The spa center hides behind a mountain ridge. At the remotest corner on site, visitors lose the last trace of city. The balconies climb up fog and weave through tree tops; at this unusual height, one experience the changes in moist, light, air pressure, and smell, not unlike the ones felt by pandas.

On the way downhill, one could easily spot the observatory rising from a peak, like three clusters of trees. The “trees” prop up platforms of varied elevations, granting optimum and comprehensive views to the exiting panda base on site, the mountains, the plateau, and the city at distance.

It would be doomed to presume that putting panda in front of people’s face automatically engenders empathy and promotes understanding. More powerful approaches appeal to emotion and sensation. Thus, why not pursue this seemingly peculiar strategy: to hide the objective panda in order to bring about the subjective panda? Paths lead people into the realm and life experience of panda, when nodes amplify the natural conditions and corresponding sensations.

Living panda is knowing panda. A Panda Theme Park is not necessarily full of pandas. Let human be the protagonist and panda as a paradigm! It shall respect its environment, being not merely entertainment but also a dose of sensational vaccine that influences action.

# LOADING #

# LOADING #

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In this town with few vehicles on the streets, alongside the interlaced alleyways are series corridors and verandas formed by long overhanging eaves, under which people find their shelter to gather to have tea and play cards. This kind of relaxed and tranquil lifestyle is unique to the not enclosed but rather open west Szechuan Courtyards.
In order to remain the intrinsic cultural context and street texture of this ancient town, and to effectively adapt to modern ways of living, we use the original footprint of the demolished buildings as a start point to form an organism that is based on memory, and to reproduce the scale and intimacy of the original courtyard and alleys.
By adopting a more contemporary approach, we provide this ancient town with a self-grow ability. Within this organism, various living atmospheres and activities will slowly take root. This form of controlled voluntary generation will be freely explored and built by future occupants. 
The design goal starts with the overall area planning, aims to give a new ecology of courtyard life to Qionglai. As a small fragment of the entire organism, the selected site adjacent to the Wang’s Family house in the north and Wenmai Lane in the south, focuses on the comparison of old and new courtyard and alley spaces. The reclaimed building materials reinterpret the history of the town and adds a layer to the palimpsest.
The new “courtyard” will be presented as a fluid space that connects yards, alleys, terraces, porches and verandas and can accommodate various functions of today and in the future.

-Why We Renovated the Two Farmer’s Houses

When the client asked us to do the renovation of the farmer’s houses, we had already collaborated on two projects in this provincial region near the outskirt of Beijing, one a boutique hotel and the other a hotpot restaurant. They approached with a vision of forming a building network and influencing beyond.

The story shall start with the hotpot restaurant. Before, the relationship between the locals and incomers had been quite awkward. The natives assumed that the citified looked down on them, showing hype-consciousness to extraneous developments and imposed aesthetics, while the outsiders consequently felt that the villagers were not welcoming.

Nevertheless, after the opening of hotpot restaurant, the prejudices and misunderstandings between the two groups, to our surprise, started to be mediated. It seems that the place establishes a common ground between the two. For the villagers, it is the new marker well-incorporated with their daily life, one that is nostalgic and representative of the village’s essence; for the outsiders, it is the space to experience the vernacular. The two share a similar degree of admiration from two very different perspectives.

Later, San Sa Boutique Hotel broke ground. Inviting local people to tightly involve in the process of construction and training them to work in house, the project further bridges the gap. From these two cases, the client saw an opportunity to form a bigger network of intervention and desired to make one step further in connecting the locals with incomers.

Coincidently, at that time some villagers intended to rent out part of their houses. The client seized the opportunity and planned to rent these houses and to renovate them as homestay with the owners still living in, a gesture potentially forming a closer relationship between the urban and the rural.

-Sharing Space under A Walnut Tree

It has to root itself in the soil of its surrounding situation, forge a unique identity. Yet in order to take part in common impression, it is necessary at the same time to share the living culture we have now.

The house had just been renovated by the owner with his own choice of material and style, who would regret if the brand-new glass windows and shiny colorful ceramic tiles were to be discarded. Nevertheless, travelers have their own expectations of a scenic countryside such as red bricks and grey roof tiles, reminiscent to a nostalgic past rather than to the extant condition subject to the progress of industrialization.

The mismatch requested us to explore the feasibility of mediating the aesthetic discrepancy without compromising either side - we indeed did not want to condescendingly impose an urban imagination of the vernacular. Firstly, we attempted to maintain the existing ceramic tiles but break, remix, and retile to form a new pattern. The new trencadis walls, though in their original material and color, express a more rustic charm. Then, by a small intervention of changing and emphasizing the color of the entrance curtain and stair of each room, guests get a better sense of owning his or her own space.

Both the exuberant and outgoing character of the owner and the courtyard house’s open composition define itself as an extrovert locale suited growing into an inclusive shared space, facilitating a lifestyle of gathering and discourse, as the one of ancient literati - conversing in the countryside under a simple thatched house open to views. We increased the area of public space and organized the programs for better communication, between owner vs. visitor, visitor vs. visitor, and visitor vs. landscape.

On the other hand, more sharing not necessarily leads to better spatial quality，while maintaining a sense of privacy is a prerequisite for the enjoyment of gathering. When the space is too large, emptiness nullifies the purpose of sharing; when the space is overly small, it will be crowded and noisy, making the experience uncomfortable.

For not forcing the lifestyle, we provide three different types of gathering space with different scale, degree of privacy, and spatial quality, so that one always finds his or her comfort spot. The indoor multi-purpose kitchen for the ones who enjoys cooking and chatting. When the interior can be easily privatized, the outdoor courtyard is more communal and gives chance for people to relish the fresh air of countryside. The roof top features a holistic view of the Great Wall unattainable from the ground. These three shared spaces give people the chance to meet new friends with different themes to start a conversation.

-Why We Renovated the Two Farmer’s Houses

When the client asked us to do the renovation of the farmer’s houses, we had already collaborated on two projects in this provincial region near the outskirt of Beijing, one a boutique hotel and the other a hotpot restaurant. They approached with a vision of forming a building network and influencing beyond.

The story shall start with the hotpot restaurant. Before, the relationship between the locals and incomers had been quite awkward. The natives assumed that the citified looked down on them, showing hype-consciousness to extraneous developments and imposed aesthetics, while the outsiders consequently felt that the villagers were not welcoming.

Nevertheless, after the opening of hotpot restaurant, the prejudices and misunderstandings between the two groups, to our surprise, started to be mediated. It seems that the place establishes a common ground between the two. For the villagers, it is the new marker well-incorporated with their daily life, one that is nostalgic and representative of the village’s essence; for the outsiders, it is the space to experience the vernacular. The two share a similar degree of admiration from two very different perspectives.

Later, San Sa Boutique Hotel broke ground. Inviting local people to tightly involve in the process of construction and training them to work in house, the project further bridges the gap. From these two cases, the client saw an opportunity to form a bigger network of intervention and desired to make one step further in connecting the locals with incomers.

Coincidently, at that time some villagers intended to rent out part of their houses. The client seized the opportunity and planned to rent these houses and to renovate them as homestay with the owners still living in, a gesture potentially forming a closer relationship between the urban and the rural.

-A Private Journey

“A boundary is not that at which something stops, but the boundary is that from which something begins its presencing.” -Martin Heidegger

The courtyard house has two units, one more traditional and the other modern. The former one was disused and full of waste, and the latter in use by the owner’s family. The layout of the comparatively new construct was rather chaotic: there was no convenient indoor bathroom and no clear division of different functions within the house. For the design of both units, we proposed no structural change to lower the budget. Yet we cleaned up the interior and rearranged the functional programs in order to provide the guests with efficiency, privacy, and freedom of use.

The exterior of the two units reflected a change of style in the Chinese rural over the past few decades. The traditional one had unique blue window frames and red brick walls, and the contemporary one rough concrete. We decided to keep the distinct brick façade and to add a new red brick face over the rough concrete wall, with special patterns designed according to the outside view.

This very house locates further in the mountain, and the host did not want to cross the guests every so often; a separate path was used to access the tenants’ yard. These conditions characterize this house as an introvert one, targeting the group who enjoys one’s own space. As a result, the scheme divides up the originally open and homogeneous lot into three sub-yards with different introvert qualities.

Besides solid walls, we introduce softer space dividers such as undulating landscape, parapets, seats, and trees, creating semi-private outdoor area for each guest room. The space dividers do not intersect at the same point; instead, they rotate in a way to form an interstitial space with a possibility of serendipitous encounter.

Although the three sub-yards lean against each other, sense of privacy is achieved through careful control of views and curation of foreground and background objects including the landscaping in the yard and the Great Wall at distance. The high and low slopes form both outdoor and indoor landscape, providing viewpoints of different height, granting a spatial experience only activated through wandering, and establishing a gradience field of privacy and openness. Finding your own little space in the invisible boundaries and discovering your fellow travelers in a tangible separation – this is what we hope to achieve in the end.

“The search of organized space in the measured and sensible line from what exists and what is dream.”

“The Architecture inhabits the liminal space between memory, dream and reality.”

“Redefining the traditional idea/ form of barriers between spaces in order to create a catalyst for social, cultural and knowledge exchange”

“An attempt to use organized space as the media to probe the extent of social interaction and isolation under the context of collective residency”

“Finding your own little space in the invisible boundaries and discovering your fellow travelers in a tangible separation.”

“To insulate is to associate, the physically and mentally reframing boundaries provides a field for visitors to recognize visitor's perception of neighbor, (in order to create a catalyst for social, cultural and knowledge exchange).”

The Yangshuo Impressions Sanjie Liu seats itself in one of the most dramatic landscapes in China. A blanket of greenery surrounds the site filling space between large karst towers of rock. With a landscape so grand, any attempt to dismiss it, let alone compete makes little sense. With this understanding, it was decided that the natural elements themselves would form the premise for what architecture would inhabit the site, one element in particular, bamboo.

The Impression Sanjie Liu is already well established, now in its 15th year of operation. This presented a situation where most existing structures would remain untouched. Instead focus was shifted to how new intervention could support a pre-existing condition. At present, large clusters of bamboo cover most of the site, creating walls and roofs of mingling pipes and leaves. The concept looks at borrowing the materiality of the bamboo, reconfiguring it to form new space. In doing so, this new space aims to in no way challenge, rather its intention is to augment, albeit very gently, the surrounding bamboo groves and hills.

Currently, there are two main areas of interest for the guest, one at either end of the lengthy island site. The first, the front gate and pagoda where guests enter and can wait. At the other end, the main stage, perched at the bank of the Li river. However, between these two points remained little interaction. It is here in this middle ground that two assemblies of architecture are introduced. The first, woven bamboo lantern structures, scattered where guests circulate, whose purpose is to guide and intrigue. The second, a stretch of canopy amongst clusters of bamboo, providing area to walk sheltered from regular rainfall. In these, the architecture relies on bamboo not only for its composition, but also its constant referral to sentiment of place.

Near the entry of the site, the lanterns begin small in stature, casting out signals of dappled light through their porous facades. Further in they become incrementally larger to a point where the guest can enter. Here, following the suspense of only viewing, features of the lantern can be experienced from both the inside and out. The makeup of the lanterns remains sincere, with a structure of lashed bamboo that is enclosed in a hand-woven mesh either side, the exterior coarser than the linear weaving inside. To the southern edge of the island the canopy shrouds itself within the massive masts of bamboo. At first glance, it appears to rely on little for support, only the columns of bamboo shooting up and through openings above. The ceiling takes on a shape of an inverted landscape, undulating between different levels of surfaces. The stepping surface of the canopy is covered entirely in irregular hand-woven bamboo, the intention to enchant while still extending recognition to the natural condition of the site.

In acknowledgment to the theatrical spirit of the Impressions Sanjie Liu, moments of performance make its way into many parts of the design: The hand weaving, bamboo playing off the tension of one another. The topography of the canopy ceiling dancing between columns of bamboo as if unsupported. Even the way guests are intended to move from lantern to lantern, in a narrative of interaction. Together these subtle hints encourage a particular frame of mind, readying the guest for the main feature.

Being situated in Beigou Village, Huairou, at the foot of the Mutianyu Great Wall, Beijing, such a space, seems to have much broader meaning than what it is being called.

A profitable extension of a newly constructed village resort, a more proactive and urbanized manner of communication emerged in the village, a sweet integration of originally contrasting life styles, an unprecedented cultural renaissance, a hint of the rural areas of China starting to be sliced apart as how it happened in the cities, or it is merely a space for food?

It is ambiguous as a space that the potential attributes of it may far exceed what it intended to achieve, in the culturally transitional period of a country that itself is uncertain about its own identity and the value of it.

Superficially, this is a place reconstructed and transformed from a farmer’s home kitchen to a restaurant that serves the traditional Beijing hotpot which is one of the most typical representation of the Old-Beijing-Culture, however, the location, the historical background and how the space has been designed and constructed, make any of its given names imprecise, unless being very general.

At such particular moment, when the pursuit of design becomes increasingly visible which makes China seem to be probably still one of the best places to experiment, the opportunities in the urban areas continue to shrink. The conflict between the booming eagerness to create utopian architecture in China and the dramatically decreasing demand, shifts the possibilities to imagine, from where architects in China are familiar with to where are interestingly considered as places that architects are only emotionally attached to.

As a result, all relevant creations which are meant to be the revival of certain types of culture or the sensitive reaction to particular kinds of social movements turn out to be repetitively numb and senseless.

Then what exactly is the place designed for?
It is a place that has been reconstructed and transformed from a farmer’s home kitchen to an Old-Beijing hotpot restaurant, which consists of six types of spatial qualities that accommodate a variety of activities that are possibly not either spiritually or formally capable of being associated.

There is a specific desired program, yet, it will be less numb if it makes people feel reluctant to define. 

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The project “Stone Village and the Hidden Hotspring” started ten years ago. The owner’s original intention was to save only several houses in his deserted home village in order to retrieve childhood memories once enjoyed. Later, inspired by experts of village construction who activate ancient villages by art, the idea was extended to then also revive the wider ravine lands. This 6-kilometer-long, 36-square-kilometer mountainous area is the southern ravine of Liang’s Town, where 9 deserted villages are located along 5 branching ravines. “Stone Village and the Hidden Hotspring” is meant to redefine one of these villages named Denghua Village. The sense of mission in this project has become more profound, as the personal nostalgia emotion is extended to local cultural preservation. It witnesses the exploration of a practical approach to the revival and sustainable development of rural area.
Rural China should not be labeled as poverty. Building a more beautiful and sustainable village is an important attempt to explore the path of China's economic transition and rural reconstruction. The activation of village should be based on agriculture, encouraging original farmers to return while introducing new farmers, and adhering to the concept of “building the countryside more like countryside”. It then becomes important to retain the texture of village, being sympathetic to what lay there before. “Stone Village and the Hidden Hotspring” will become a land of promise in the northern countryside, through the theme of “three types of enjoyments”. These refer to the host enjoying rural charm with the guests and the new farmers, guests and new farmers enjoying the shared space and the enjoyment in private spaces. In integrating the three types of rural experience into surrounding landscape and architecture, a village with a history of thousands of years will be subtly allied with the cultural spirit and natural charm of the project, bringing about a new lifestyle of the countryside and so strengthening the village’s potential capacity to keep up with the times.
Design of the architecture and space first provides a platform for retrospecting the value of history, bringing the tools and daily necessities that have been left in memory back “home”; secondly, it creates new space for new rural lifestyle. This combination preserves the impress of rural life while providing a possibility of flexible use. In realizing this, the stages of construction can be summarized as: preservation of the site, reconstruction with recycled materials, and new construction with new materials.
The central area of the project is regarded as the living room of the owner, providing space for public events and shared lifestyles; in the hidden woods and mountains, a quiet experience of seclusion is available. Landscape and natural spring water will also run through the entire site to show the three elements of new rural life, that is, “woods”, “hidden” and “spring water”. Stepping on the familiar slate tiles paved path, accompanied by the stars at night and the birds in the morning, the summer stream and the white snow in winter, people feel that they are integrated with the village and nature.

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LEO digital network has been the top digital agency in Chinese network with digital marketing services from media to creative to e-commerce to mobile to the smart TV sector, locally and even globally.
The network agency has approximately 600 employees (mostly between 20-30 years of age) and a client list including international heavy hitters and local start-ups, such as Coca Cola, Pepsi, Starbucks, Costa, Lindt, Michelin, Suntory and all other globally well-known and leading companies.

As a role model in the creative industry of China who has been consistently searching for new ideas and vitalized by young blood of the New Chinese generation, the restructuring of the company also brought an opportunity to creating a refreshing new image and taking the company culture to a completely new level.

Transparency
All meeting spaces and offices have been separated by using clear glass to allow natural light to be brought into the deep work space as a critical part of the design concept, to share, the space, the light and the purity of creativity.
Meanwhile, it is to challenge the controversial term “transparency” in a stereotypically understood Chinese working hierarchy.
The transparent, only separation between spaces become functional interfaces where meeting notes, brainstorming ideas to be written on, essentially omitting all boundaries and integrates all spaces.

Materiality
The tone of the entire space is designed to be raw to depict the creation process of ideas.
Reflective concrete finishing has been applied to the entire open work space to reflect outdoor light to the inside.
Ceiling is treated using concrete paint resembling the floor finishing, thus the lighter concrete finishing on the walls and columns dramatically brightens up the space and merges into the transparent clear glasses extending the space to the outside.

Offices, meeting spaces and shared meeting points are highlighted using solid wood as “the ‘accent’ painted on the raw canvas”, giving a buffering and slower rhythm into the movement and providing transitional zones into the spaces.

Creative atmosphere (open and communicative space)
Shared and communicative areas between teams in the office are simply created by different arrangement of furniture, therefore, reconfigures the pattern of movement.
Coffee areas, shelves with books, drinks, plants in a variety of scales are carefully placed, illuminated by raw, industrial street-lamp like lighting, making the space as multi-functional as library, cafe and bar, a place where the new generation appreciates the most, where idea exchange is facilitated and encouraged in an unnoticeable manner, proactively challenging the conventional way of working.
At night, the lights resemble the stars in the sky, breaking the boundary of the space, continuing limitlessly into the realm of imagination.

Making and Design process
To confront the impetuousness and ostentatiousness of the current social phenomenon in China, llLab. intentionally challenges the design process. Numerous of samples and assembly iterations have been conducted on site. Office walls are constructed by designers, construction workers and the end users together to realize and optimize the functional and aesthetic desires based on individual demands, e.g. office walls as book shelves, drink collection display, green wall etc.
Meeting rooms, where all patterns were conceptually sketched and handcrafted on site, while having their own characteristics, the foldable glass doors in between could be opened up generating one or multiple event spaces. Meeting room tables are made as part of the timber floor, then lifted up as the tables, which visually makes the meeting spaces more spacious and purer.
The whole design and construction process took only less than three months before the employees move in. The construction site served as an experimental workshop, designers from LLLAB and the constructors work closely together conducting tests on materials, finishing, lighting etc., realizing an intimate and honest ‘human-scale’ experience.

The Dragon Skin Pavilion is a robotically fabricated temporary pavilion, installed at the University of British Columbia. The pavilion is the result of a workshop hosted by the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) and the Centre for Advanced Wood Processing (CAWP), which took place from October 5-9, 2019. The workshop was led by Assistant Professor David Correa of the University of Waterloo, Oliver David Krieg of Intelligent City, and SALA Associate Professor AnnaLisa Meyboom. This experimental structure is assembled without any metal fasteners, drawing inspiration from Japanese and Chinese building traditions. The pavilion is composed of an elastically bent grid shell structure that is connected and held in place by structural shingles. These shingles, held in place by wooden dowels, act as strong moment connections by restricting the potential rotational movement of the passing grid shell members. The shingles also provide cover from the rain. Traditional Japanese and Chinese wood joinery have a long history of skillfully crafting wood-to-wood joints that are not only highly functional, but artistically expressive as well. The skills necessary for this work, while still practiced today, have not been prevalent for over a century due to the mechanization of production and standardization of components. Using robotics, highly articulated and performative joints can once again be fabricated. The Dragon Skin Pavilion demonstrates the new capabilities of the technology to develop innovative material applications that harness the unique properties of wood to animate public spaces.
Fabricated and assembled over 3 days, the pavilion is an adaptable design-to fabrication system that can be customized to suit local material availability and fabrication tools. Each workshop participant is provided with the tools and skills required to develop a unique version that can better meet their needs. Built using the state-of-the-art eight-axis industrial robot at CAWP, the pavilion demonstrates how old materials and new technologies can reshape our built environment.

Design & Development
David Correa
University of Waterloo: uwaterloo.ca/architecture/people-profiles/david-correa
llLab – Design Laboratory: www.lllab.net
Oliver David Krieg
Intelligent City: www.intelligent-city.com
odk.design: www.odk.design
AnnaLisa Meyboom
UBC SALA: sala.ubc.ca/people/faculty/annalisa-meyboom

UBC Project Leads
Jason Chiu
Jörn Dettmer
UBC Centre for Advanced Wood Processing: http://cawp.ubc.ca/
Dean Gregory
Campus and Community Planning
David Gill
UBC SEEDS Sustainability Program

Built by
Student Participants:
Emilia Brasdefer
Shirley Duong
Thomas Foster
Ellen Harper
Shabaan Khokhar
Alexandra Ianoul
Ho Yun Law
Yiguan Li
Samuel Shulman
Ethan Schwartz
Yekta Tehrani
Angela Wen
Colin Willaims

Industry Participants:
Blair Birdsell - Equilibrium Engineering
John Boys - Nicola Logworks
David Girard - Peak Ventures
Vicente Hernandez - Universidad de Concepcion
Kyle Malinsky - Fraserwood Industries Ltd.
Jinsu Park - KPMB Architects
Jason Skladan - Skladan Design
Stuart Wylie - East Fraser Fiber

Teaching Assistants:
Lys Hermanski
Sarah Klym
Derek Mavis

Funding
Forest Industry Innovation
This project is a collaboration between students, staff, faculty, and external partners as part of UBC’s
SEEDS Sustainability Program

Filmed and Edited by Shabaan Khokhar
Photos by David Correa and Shabaan Khokhar

Flexible architecture is an experimental research for creating new space quality. From the traditional architectural point of view building must be rigid and heavy for protecting human beings from natural environment.
But now due to the advancement of technology, such as material development and invention of computational tools, architecture can be made flexible.
For example, we can use relatively soft materials for generating complex geometry. Or, we can simulate the behavior of Materials precisely so that the choices for the architectural materials becoming more and more. We can even manipulate the material performance by controlling the microscopic composition of materials.
Currently, the scale of flexible architecture is mainly researched in scales of pavilions or interior designs, but how the flexibility of materials and forms changes the quality of the space can be evidently observed.

The Wander Wood Pavilion is a robotically fabricated temporary installation at the University of British Columbia Campus. The pavilion is the result of the Robot Made: Large-Scale Robotic Timber Fabrication in Architecture workshop, hosted by SALA and UBC Centre for Advanced Wood Processing from October 13-17. The workshop was led by David Correa of the University of Waterloo, Oliver David Krieg of LWPAC, and SALA professor AnnaLisa Meyboom.

Fabricated and assembled over three days, the pavilion is conceived as an adaptable design to fabrication system that can be customized to suit local material availability and fabrication tools. Each participant is provided with the tools and skills to develop a unique version that can better meet their local needs. Built using the state-of-the-art eight-axis industrial robot at CAWP, the pavilion demonstrates how old materials and new technologies can reshape our built environment.

Starting with computational tools for parametric design, structural principles for wood construction, robotic CNC milling and digital workflow management, participants were provided with a unique insight into the new opportunities and challenges of advanced design to fabrication processes for timber structures. Parametric design and robotic fabrication are disruptive new technologies in architecture that allow us to build high performance structures of unprecedented formal complexity. Wood is a natural partner for these technologies because of the ability to easily mill and shape it with robotically controlled cutting tools. Wood is also highly sustainable – not only is it a renewable resource but it also stores carbon – making it one of the most sustainable building materials in the world.

This experimental structure demonstrates the new capabilities of the technology to develop innovative material applications that harness the unique properties of wood to animate public spaces.

Design & Development
David Correa
University of Waterloo
llLab. – Design Laboratory

Oliver David Krieg
LWPAC +IC
odk.design

AnnaLisa Meyboom
UBC SALA

UBC Project Leads
Jason Chiu
Jörn Dettmer
UBC Centre for Advanced Wood Processing

Dean Gregory
Campus and Community Planning

David Gill
UBC SEEDS Sustainability Program

Student participants
Zahra Asghari
John Chan
Selina Chau
Jessica Chen
Alex Floyd
Kemeng Gao
Junting He
Emily Kazanowski
Haobo Liu
Jia Liu
Bryn Martin
Jenna Ratzlaff
Theo Van Vugt
Trevor Vilac
Bahar Ziraknejad

Industry participants
Ivan Antoniw
Tony Bojarsky
Nelson Brito
Aiden Carruthers
Jamie Connolly
Andrew Drakeford
Mahdiar Ghaffarian
Elton Gjata
Michael Hiebert
Marco Kneifel
Mori Kono
Yehia Madkour
Sindhu Mahadevan
Logan Mohr
Nariman Mousavirad
Dai Ona
Aaron Oussoren
Jason Ramelson
Mallory Stuckel
Majd Sukkarieh
Taryn Sheppard

Teaching Assistants
Stuart Lodge
Derek Mavis

Funding

Forest Industry Innovation

This project is a collaboration between students, staff, faculty, and external partners as part of UBC’s SEEDS Sustainability Program

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The Dragon Skin Pavilion is a robotically fabricated temporary pavilion, installed at the University of British Columbia. The pavilion is the result of a workshop hosted by the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) and the Centre for Advanced Wood Processing (CAWP), which took place from October 5-9, 2019. The workshop was led by Assistant Professor David Correa of the University of Waterloo, Oliver David Krieg of Intelligent City, and SALA Associate Professor AnnaLisa Meyboom.