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Architecture | Social Architecture

CACP “Designing?”


YIIIE Architects



Short description

The project initiated by YIIIE Architects focuses on the study and practice of utilizing informal urban leftover spaces. China is at once experiencing rapid urbanization while undergoing the neglect of urban leftover spaces under non-privatized land property policies. As the phase of urban renewal progresses, these neglected spaces may offer opportunities for revitalization.

The project employs an interdisciplinary approach, engaging local communities through fields of architecture, design, sociology, and art. It forms collaborative action groups with various stakeholders including community members, residents, merchants, community governance groups, government officials, and volunteers. By analyzing keywords such as space, content, and policy, the project explores the dynamic relationship between the city and local communities. It seeks to establish sustainable mechanisms for participation and to collectively create and reshape living spaces and rights.

Located in Yulin 2nd Alley in China, where many buildings remain partially demolished, this area presents a suspended state amidst the high-density urban center. This waiting land has become a hub for the convergence of low-income groups, migrant populations, minorities, and indigenous residents. The socio-ecology here also emerged during the lengthy and chaotic three-decade wait.

The project transforms an abandoned bicycles shed which adjacent to residents' windows into a public space. A lightweight steel structure allows for easy recycling and assembly, encouraging community participation. Utilizing recycled and everyday materials, the space is designed and constructed at minimal cost. The space consists of basic units, flexibly accommodating future functional changes. By keeping the tectonic structure exposed, the space presents the construction process with an unfinished state and supports ongoing updates and adaptations. The sawtooth gaps blur boundaries, creating a harmonious integration with nature and an open, public orientation. The planted roof provides a landscape for neighbors and can also yield edible produce, activating the community's collective cultivation and maintenance of a public garden.

A series of public activities such as resident autonomous meetings, community garden construction, interdisciplinary team "mapping" of multiple perspectives, furniture renovation workshops, and community OPEN DAY exhibitions establish connections with surrounding areas and different stakeholders. In the future, the project will use this new space as an anchor point for experimental urban renewal efforts.

Ecological Responsiveness:
The spatial structure was designed using lightweight steel that are easy to recycle and assemble, encouraging community participation in the process of construction. The space is rectangular in shape and formed by basic units, enabling flexible adjustment of each functional area along its depth, maintaining high adaptability. The construction method, which is easy to recycle and assemble, reduces the difficulty of further space changes, and allows for the fastest support for continuous space updates in a light-touched form.

The selection of materials focuses on locally sourced, low-cost industrial products as the main materials for the space. Transparent polycarbonate panels provide natural lighting, creating soft light and shadow effects and revealing different material layers. Winter insulation fabric commonly found in the area serves as a partial facade material, adding more unconventional everyday materials to the architecture. The integration of hardness and softness gives the space an accordion-like quality, creating a soft and inviting community atmosphere.

We encourage the reuse of used materials, collecting waste materials and leftover construction materials from the construction site within the neighborhood and repurposing them into furniture for everyday use and specific exhibitions. While advocating for the reduction of material waste, we also establish connections with residents, youth, and the general public through public activities, promoting the concept of sustainable use of space materials.

Part of the roof adopts a terraced planting form, providing cooling to the space, offering neighbors a green view outside their windows, and allowing easy access to pick a sprig of mint for tea. This approach also activates community efforts to collectively cultivate and maintain public gardens.

Design Aesthetics:
We aim to present a space that is light-touched, soft-edged and reflects the inclusiveness of construction process. Therefore, we chose modular, lightweight galvanized steel as the structural material, using a uniform standard of 50*100 C-shaped steel for the main structure of the entire space. This gives the overall structure a delicate, lightweight, and exposed structural linearity.

The short side of the space faces the street and alley, where we designed a distinctive entrance combined with lighting design to showcase the architectural order and the spatial layers in the depth direction. Along the long side close to the neighborhood, we transformed the boundary into a sawtooth spatial form, rotating each unit to avoid directly facing neighbors and leaving space for privacy. The staggered gaps blur the architectural outline and merge the boundaries, presenting an open attitude that blends the inside and outside. The sloped roof features mint and other plants for cooling, offering a view for neighbors, and providing leaves for tea. This creates a soft boundary that integrates nature, space, and neighborly relationships.

We also enclose the space with materials that have a soft quality, such as the contrast between quilted curtains and galvanized steel, showcasing a blend of hard and soft aesthetics. The natural lighting provided by transparent polycarbonate panels creates soft light and shadow effects, revealing different material layers.

By keeping the tectonic structure exposed, the space presents the construction process and supports ongoing updates and adaptations.

The lightweight structure, low cost, significant spatial presence, soft treatment of blended and blurred boundaries, and interesting material choices highlight the construction process and present a building in an unfinished state.

Entry details
LocationChengdu, China
Lead designerZHANG Tang
Design teamXIA Fan,CHEN Shenbin, ZHOU Yuhan
Photography creditsArch-Exist Photography
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