In a country where globalization’s impact can be seen almost everywhere, Shanghai-based Atelier Deshaus wants to keep traditions alive. “China has changed very fast,” says partner Liu Yichun. “In many places the traditional poetic culture is becoming just a memory. We want to represent this memory in our architecture.” This doesn’t mean he wants to design pagodas or roofs with old clay tiles. For Liu and his partner Chen Yifeng, architecture isn’t based on form. “It’s based on the relationship between different kinds of space, between the building and the context, and between the building and nature.”
This approach can be seen in Deshaus’s 2005 Xiayu Kindergarten, where spatial relationships follow those of a well-known local model. “In traditional Chinese residential developments there are always two parts,” Liu explains. “One is the housing where there’s a lot of activity. The other is the garden, with small buildings in it.” This mix of high and low densities appears in Xiayu as a cluster of ground-floor classrooms and a more open plan of rooftop nap rooms. In a kindergarten in Jiading, the firm turns that duality 90 degrees; the dense layer and open layer meet in boxes side by side instead of bottom to top.
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