Exhibitor: Mukai Rei
Editorial team: Shi An, Qi Hui, Pang Renfei, Song Linchen, Zhang Xiaoran
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Under 35
The Gooood team interviews young creatives under the age of 35 around the world, some of them are entrepreneurs, some are business owners, and some are ordinary employees. We visit all living beings, record the faces and true states of young people in this era, and welcome your recommendations and suggestions.
Issue 62
Introducing you
Li Wenxi Architects
Li Wenxi
01
About Li Wenxi
Architectural firms
After graduating from Zhejiang University, I worked at the Architectural Design and Research Institute of Zhejiang University and Kengo Kuma Architects and Urban Design Office. Later, I set up my own office, and at the beginning of my establishment, I received a request for the design of the office space of an e-sports company, which later became "four pieces of out-of-scale furniture".
(Above) Li Wenxi's photograph during his master's degree
(Bottom left) was redesigned at the beginning of the establishment of the office in 2015
(bottom right) and on-site surveys
In 2016, I went to Waseda University in Japan to study for a Ph.D. as a Chinese state-sent student. He continued his studies under the tutelage of Professor Seiaki Furutani, President of the Architectural Institute of Japan, and Professor Yuri Fujii. During this period, I quickly grew up through a lot of research experience, and seeing the free creative environment of Japanese independent architects strengthened my confidence in practice. In 2020, I became the first Chinese scholar to return to China after completing my Ph.D. under Seiaki Furuya's laboratory, and began my teaching career at the School of Architecture at the China Academy of Art.
During his Ph.D., he delivered a speech at the Japan-China Friendship Hall in Tokyo on behalf of Chinese students
We are currently a team of 5 to 10 people who are involved in the whole process of the project. From the early contact with Party A, the planning of the site, to the later construction drawing design and on-site guidance, the whole process is followed up until the completion of the project. I will lead the two phases of the design, the plan and the site. Structural scrutiny, construction drawing design, professional cooperation, material sampling, on-site and other work are jointly completed by partners and partners of the firm.
Office work routine
There are three types of projects we are currently doing: the first is residential projects such as hotels, homestays and self-built houses; The second category is urban public buildings, such as existing building renovation, exhibition halls, research centers, schools, etc.; The third category is the interior design of rural public buildings and public buildings.
The team is at the construction site of the project
02
philosophy
A condensed view of nature
The condensed view of nature, simply put, is a "natural state", a sense of innocence that has gone through the world but is not sophisticated. In the concept of Chinese, nature is not entirely an objective scenery of mountains, rivers and lakes, but an understanding of the universe and life. We hope to maintain our understanding of daily life in our practice, and to refine this understanding as the starting point of our creation. In terms of space shaping, people can withdraw from the complicated daily phenomena, return to a state of seclusion, and be accompanied by their natural selves. I think good design allows people to meet their natural selves.
Some of the representative works of Li Wenxi Office
03
Ideal living conditions
I think the ideal place to live is to feel time in the shadows. Home is not only a place to provide physical habitat, but also a place to give more possibilities to the heart. Excessive pursuit of comfort is not a good design, because physical comfort often leads to spiritual deprivation and boredom, and more importantly, inner satisfaction. And if the house can create a view of the universe, look down on the richness of the category, and provide a variety of ways to contact nature, it is good.
Cliff House – The Geometry of the Mountain: The site is surrounded by cold cliffs on the north side and green hills on the south side, where the multifaceted nature is fully revealed. There are multiple north-south spaces in the building, while the wall turns diagonally to enclose the mountain on the west side, forming a natural narrow entrance. On the second floor, a curved wall echoes the trend of the mountain. The beams of the building are very large, protruding from the north and south sides, as if they had grown out of a mountain cliff. The north side of the house is close to a steep slope, sandwiching a long, narrow linear courtyard. The south side of the building is open to the green hills, to embrace nature. The cone-shaped space of the roof responds to the undulating hills, and only two small round windows allow you to look out onto the landscape, and the light sloes down overhead, creating a solitary space to face the inside. This series of operations responds to the cliff in different ways, and this response allows the building to be connected without direct contact with the mountain. © Jin Weiqi
There are two basic intentions of human beings in creating space, one is to occupy and the other is to connect. For example, settlements occupy space and serve as a conduit between them, not only for exchanging goods, but also for communicating information. "Cliff House" explores the action of "connection", and architecture serves as a medium to connect two contrasting natural states, so that people living in them can feel a sense of envelopment and openness at the same time. © Jin Weiqi
The cross-reference between geometry and nature is the source of the spatial beauty of the "Cliff House". The building adopts four actions such as square, circle, angle, and fold to respond to local life: "square" is the living room and bedroom, that is, the daily life of the rules; The "circle" is the entrance and the skylight, that is, the sensual side face; The "horn" is the shape of the mountain, and it is also a meditation space to go to the heart; "Fold" is the enclosure wall, which is the wrapping and accommodating of the surrounding environment. The interior design continues the geometric approach, allowing light to enter the interior of the building from different angles at different times of the day. Qingchuan and Cliff are two forms of mountains, the latter being closer to the profile of the mountain, and together they bear witness to the internal cycle of the prosperity and withering of plants and trees. Different types of windows face different sides of the landscape, allowing buildings and people to witness the reciprocation of life. © Jin Weiqi
04
Materials & Colors
The material is the mood of the building. The architect's job is to put the various materials together in a way that gives the space a specific atmosphere. To express this idea, you must first have a deep understanding of the characteristics of the material and be good at using different combinations to express your intentions. In general, I use materials that have not been treated with complex processes, such as brick, wood, tinted glass, etc. The materials themselves bear traces of handiwork, and when they are used, they take on new meanings, and the buildings show the passage of time.
I like rich colors, but my professional education in architecture has made me use more black, white and gray for design, and after independent practice, I try to get rid of the indifference and boredom of this kind of decoration, and express more emotions in architecture. The essence of choosing color is to choose a certain mood, and I tend to use the natural color of the material, such as the warm red of brick, the cool silver of stainless steel, the warm yellow of wood, and so on. The second is based on interaction, that is, the interaction between materials or between materials and the environment, such as glass transmitting sunlight, metal reflecting water, wood retaining hand, etc. Authenticity and interaction, both of which together form the basis of my choice of color.
House of Red Notes on the horizon: The base is surrounded by mountains, and I thought that the building should be "embedded", so I lowered the building by 1.5 meters. It should also be the center of the whole site, or based on the turquoise of the surrounding mountains, and the building materials are contrasting colors, that is, red materials.
I thought there should be a slight difference between red, so we chose red ceramic bricks, red and white terrazzo, red painted steel components, yellow wood grain railings and other red materials with different textures. After completion, the building is like a spark lighting up the entire Huzhou mountains and rivers and grasslands.
05
From research to practice
The history of modern architecture is a history of continuity and criticism. What I am concerned with is the evolution of the core concepts of architecture. In the case of neighboring Japan, there was a clear process of embracing the ideas of the Enlightenment and introducing modernism, and the impact and integration during this period helped Japan to develop its own genre, and Japanese architecture has now developed a unique style. Of course, Japan has also taken some detours in the development of locality, such as the "Imperial Crown Style" in the last century, which is a simple imitation of the national style, which deviates from the original meaning of architecture.
(above) the cover of Li Wenxi's monograph; (Below) the cover of Li Wenxi's paper
The inspiration for the development of Japanese architecture is that we should constantly reflect through trial and error, put aside the controversy between ism and style, return to the architectural ontology to make innovations, and do not try to design with the help of a certain general intention.
(above) Li Wenxi at the lecture and sharing session;
(Below) Poster of the Lecture Series "Continuation and Criticism: A Century of Japanese Architecture" (Sanlian Life)
Combined with my own works, for example, the "Boundary Residence" project is mainly derived from my research on the boundary space of the garden, and I selected 9 of the 137 boundary spaces I have studied to be used in the independent houses in Luohe, creating a contemporary abstract garden space experience. Since then, I have made a typological study of the boundary space of Suzhou gardens, which has been published in the Collected Papers of the Japanese Institute of Architecture, a top journal in Japanese architecture. This achievement has also attracted the attention of Japanese academics, and is considered to be the first to understand Chinese gardens in the form of architectural composition.
Analysis diagram of 137 boundary space typology studies
Boundary House – A ballad about life
In the "House of Rooms" project in Quzhou, Zhejiang, I focus on the "breakpoints" in time and space, and I disconnect people's continuous experience of time and space with shear walls at different intervals, and shape corridors and stages running through them on the breakpoints, bringing together people's feelings of time and space with the help of skylight. This design studies the basic concept of "bay", which is designed to respond to the objective world with different widths and narrow bays, and the architectural elements that run through each other.
rooms
My experiences in other places and hometowns have become a source of inspiration for my work. "Four Pieces of Heterogeneous Furniture" is a translation of "Han Xizai's Night Banquet", and it is also a study of the ontological problem of "scale". The design uses furniture installations that are different from the usual scale to divide the space, creating a flexible experience in the long space, integrating the two functions of office and leisure, and also enlivening the atmosphere of the esports company.
Four pieces of out-of-scale furniture – LANDER Esports office
"Light Chasing Container" explores the relationship between the trajectory of the sun and architecture, and I try to use indoor space to capture the trajectory of celestial bodies. This practice is also used in Katsura Rikyu, and the Tsukimi Terrace, located on the west side of Katsura Rikyu Nakajima Island in Kyoto, was designed based on the moon's trajectory. On the 3-meter-long and 4-meter-wide bamboo-paved open platform, the viewer can enjoy the complete trajectory of the full moon on the quiet night of the full moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Chasing light container: Renovation © of the front hall of Tianmei Theater Jin Weiqi
Experimentation and practice are my way of working, and experiments dig into the spatial archetypes in my mind, which are a mixture of my hometown life and foreign experience, such as my childhood life in a miscellaneous courtyard, my teenage life in a unit building, my adolescent school life, and my adult life as a student. In a word, it is a reverie about life. Some of them are plain, some are magical. For example, the archetype of "coverage" actually originated from a special experience of living in a compound when I was a child. At that time, when I was crawling around in the attic and bumping into the beams when I looked up, this sense of shelter close to the roof was my personal feeling of the archetype of "covering", which I then abstracted and applied in practice.
"Four Ways" discusses four ways of seeing the world, namely first sight, glimpse, looking up, and wandering, and the room is expressed in four different forms of windows and interfaces, which are metaphors for the four stages of life from childhood ignorance and curiosity, juvenile blindness and radicalism, youth persistence and confusion to old age calmness and freedom. And the roof as a covering is the premise of all this, which carries and divides this change of perception based on viewing. This work also won the gold medal of the CIRCOS International Competition in Japan (Jun Igarashi Award).
The interior design of the "Settlement under the Umbrella" located in Hangzhou Damei Creative Park explores the spatial prototype of the high-density settlement under the "coverage". The large roof of the building forms an innate package, and there are different types of blocks underneath, which sometimes suspend to form a corridor, and sometimes gather under the roof, forming a spatial experience similar to that of a street and alley, and full of market interest during walking.
Basic architectural issues such as boundaries, bays, scales, light, and settlements are all topics of interest to me.
The settlement under the umbrella is based on the premise of the original large roof of the building, weaving a wooden frame in the lower part, and implanting metal and wooden settlements in the frame to form a gathering place for new and old materials, space up and down, and physical cold and warm.
06
teaching
The building is straight faced
The art of reality
"Paradox and Movement" is an introductory design course in our freshman year, which emphasizes the five basic architectural actions of "dividing", "wearing", "covering", "closing" and "lifting". We selected 10 plots of land from the Xiangshan Campus of the China Academy of Art, and asked each student to use a certain action to relate to the environment in response to the paradox of a specific plot. Over the course of 8 weeks, students were trained in form generation strategies and spatial expression skills.
Paradoxes and Actions — Curriculum Studies & Presence in Spatial Teaching (Teaching Process)
Part of the field with student assignments
"Reverie on Spontaneous Construction" is the topic of the graduation project, and it is also a study on the illegal construction of new countryside in the context of China's large-scale urbanization. With the help of the study of spontaneous construction, it is possible to discuss the significance of typology as well as new building types.
Creation has no boundaries, while architecture is enclosed and needs to be used for a long time, and our creation cannot be separated from reality. Therefore, our classroom is confronted with reality, not only in the classroom, but also in the countryside, in the new countryside of China, in front of all kinds of self-built houses, and in the homes of the occupants. Imagine your own house in such a diverse environment. Let architecture become an art that faces reality and the present.
(Above) "Reverie on Spontaneous Construction" Course Outcome - The upper and lower surfaces of the layer
(Below) "Reverie on Spontaneous Construction" Course Outcome - Appendage on the Wall
Photographs and lessons from the "Reverie on Spontaneous Construction" course
07
Current Situation and Future Expectations
There are three main types of projects in progress, the first type of residential buildings, such as Pan'an Shuangxi Resort Hotel, Moganshan Zhepo B&B, Hunan Pillar House, Jiangxi Duchang Independent Residence, and Yongkang Xia Ducao Village Old House Renovation. The second type of urban cultural public buildings, such as the invitation competition of a university research institute and the design of Hangzhou Settlement No. 5 Creative Industry Park. The third type of interior design, such as the interior design of a Sichuan restaurant in Hangzhou (to be released soon). In the future, we hope to actively participate in China's urban redevelopment and rural revitalization.
Ongoing projects
(Above) Moganshan B&B in Huzhou, Zhejiang
(Middle) Zhejiang Pan'an Mountain Hotel
(Below) Hangzhou Settlement No. 5 Creative Industry Park Planning Update
In the process of teaching, students often worry: China's construction volume has declined, and there will be no need for so many architects in the future, so where should we go from here? In my opinion, China's architectural creation is far from reaching its climax, and the ebb of the real estate tide has only deprived some draftsmen who make a living by copying and pasting as a means of making a living, which just leaves room for independent architects to create.
The spring of China's independent architectural community is coming. If you really love design, now is the time to create. As far as our team is concerned, we still want to maintain a state of experimentation in the future and express a clear point of view through our work. Create freely in a world where there is no pursuit of meaning or purpose.
Li Wenxi