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Sherica Chua

Wang Shu

In most of their projects, they are lending against course reuse of natural materials such as bricks, pebbles, and bamboo is the purpose of materiality in their project. As what was lost was the old dynasty drawing views of how their country used to look like. Using the history site the Buildings remind them that they should not forget where they are, as architects to ameliorate our world.


To feel connected from the past and present, to make them feel proud or to belong. The locality is necessary for them, massing that resembles textures on occasion formations found in nature, as it brings out the orra of their past warm and welcoming houses which were demolished to recreate into new. Creating an old and new massing for the new buildings, from comparing the site with old beautiful drawings to the recycled material they use, which locals really enjoyed as the walls remind them of their old ‘home’.


Due to the frequent experience of typhoons and big winds, which resulted in buildings to collapse. They execute based on the area of the land, thinking about the frequent natural disasters and how can they create for low-income people. They believe that using recycled materials was a go-to in most of their plans. During the design of the walls/buildings, they are trained to not copy others’ designs, but to allow their own imagination to be put onto the drawings and built.

Fig. 1 Shows the Ningbo Museum (Source: https://www.dezeen.com/2012/02/28/key-projects-by-wang-shu/ ) Fig 2. Shows the texture of the walls (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningbo_Museum )

In relation, one of his works would be the Ningbo Museum (Fig.1) . Ningbo Museum is designed by Wang Shu, the first Chinese citizen to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2012. The design is a conceptual combination of mountains, water, and oceans, as the East China Sea has played an important role in the history of Ningbo. Features of Jiangnan residences are integrated into the museum design by decorations made from old tiles and bamboo. (Wiki,2022) In addition, known to the elderly, go there regularly to enjoy experiencing the sense of the building, as to them the recycled texture (Fig. 2)of the building brings back memories of their old house, which was demolished.

Another one of his projects was the renovation of Wencun Village, the case of the so-called tiled garden that he and Lu Wenyu built for the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2006, a work composed of some 60,000 tiles and 5,000 bamboo strips. (Archdaily, 2022) On this site, he also uses the method of recycling materials, creating a comfortable and easier excess space for the residents living there. Residents after the rebuild are able to park their cars in their own houses, which made the road and streets look cleaner and neat.


Overall, his methods really fit what my design philosophy is, user experience. As shown in his works, it is filled with the ending of how the users would feel in the space. It is important as this really, I believe, does a lot of impacts on the meaning of the works done and the user's comfortability in the spaces.


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