Articles by July Shao

This is a takeaway coffee shop. Based on the first floor of a commercial office building near Huan Shi Dong Road, the ring road of Guangzhou City, it has only 9 square meters of indoor area. To differentiate and form an impression of the shop at the level of the street interface, we shaped our image through an independent structure, avoiding the common flatness when the façade is only a thin surface on the building’s finish. Meanwhile, we want to make the coffee shop’s facade a relatively closed way, keeping it somehow mysterious and facing the bustling street with ease.

Since a collection of Wu Dayu’s work might not be exhibited at this museum, the name of Wu Dayu Art Museum has been discontinued. We use No Name Art Museum only as a temporary measure. However, the design of this piece of architecture was very much inspired by him.   

Present situation. The project is located in the Zhexi Reservoir, Anhua County, Hunan Province. The project was formerly a timber factory with a history of more than 60 years. In the past two decades, it was abandoned due to the decline of the timber company and became an idle facility in the countryside. In 2019, it was established by Anhua Meishan City Investment Group Co., Ltd. invested and transformed it into a supporting homestay along the lake ring of the Zhexi Reservoir Scenic Area. It hopes to revitalize the idle resources in rural areas through design and transformation, then promotes the revitalization of local villages and the development of tourism. The site consists of five vacant buildings, namely the office building (Building 1) of the original timber company, the restaurant (Building 2), the dormitory (Building 3 and 5), and the pigsty (Building 4). Due to the large construction area and limited cost, we intend to use the principles of low cost, minimal intervention, and making the best use of the situation to carry out renovation and utilization from the perspective of rational allocation of the renovation budget. According to the respective positional relationship, landscape conditions, and morphological characteristics of the five buildings, find their respective appropriate functional positioning.

Shunchang Museum is located in a county that features a unique location. As approaching the project, the architects studied the internal connection between the site and the city, balanced the local context with metaphorical creation, and worked to let the building integrate into local citizens’ daily life and carry the memory of those who’re residing in places far away from their hometown. Designed in response to local context and based on a people-centered principle, the museum is not merely a space that collects and displays exhibits. For the city where it sits, the museum itself is an exhibit, platform, and symbol. It carries the nostalgic sentiments of local people and interprets the past and future of local culture. The project is located in Shunchang County, Nanping City in Fujian Province. Shunchang is surrounded by mountains, with Futun Stream passing through. The museum is sited in a core urban area, with its south side facing Longshan Mountain across a road and overlooking the Monument to People’s Heroes in the distance, and the north side adjoining a waterfront walking trail along Futun Stream. The plot stretches in an east-west direction, with a limited depth in the south-north direction. Featuring a spindle-like shape, it sits in between mountains and water. The programs of the project mainly include a museum, an urban planning exhibition center, office rooms, and cultural relics storerooms. Meanwhile, with consideration of the operation of this venue, the architects engaged in functional planning and positioning and added some extra functions such as an auditorium, book bar, and cafe. As a common county-level museum, Shunchang Museum accommodates no key well-known collections, so the entry point and focus of the architectural design was shifted to let the building integrate into citizens’ daily life and carry the memory and nostalgic sentiments of locals especially those leaving their hometown. This place embraces the view of mountain and water landscapes and evokes a sense of nostalgia.

Usually, the particularity and complexity of the site also constitute the front label of the building. This design object is the Yunlong Mountain Meditation Hotel, Xuzhou, which is located on the axis of worshiping Buddha in Xinghua Temple. It has a natural tranquil atmosphere and a superior landscape vision. The operator hopes that the hotel can provide accommodation and commercial support for the worshiping Buddha meditation guests. Under this background, our intervention strategy for this site is to first consider following the original environment, then integrating into it, and finally creating a new “order”.

Banyan Tree Nanjing Garden Expo is a luxury hotel located on Tangshan Mountain, which was once a paradise dense with clouds and mists. However, the exploitation and destruction by humans have stripped its vegetation, changed the geography, eroded the soil, and damaged the landscape, turning Tangshan Mountain into devastated industrial ruins. It has become imperative to beautify and restore the site to enable the symbiosis of humans and nature.

“I was very impressed by the village. It was quite beautiful. The weather was mostly cloudy when I visited there, with a bit misty and foggy air surrounding the entire village.”