Selected readings:
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Change is a Common Sense: An Everyday Report
from a Chinese Architectural Studio
Keep survive in constant changing as an architect. No!!!
Keep survive in constant changing as an architect. Why not?
Change is a common sense. Architecture in essence is about change, its future also relies on change. Through an everyday report for Atelier Archmixing under the context of rapid urbanization in China, including their design projects, urban researches, spatial experiments, multiple senses and virtual-reality combined explorations, this presentation introduces how rethinking change could be a valuable starting point for an architect to keep survive, as well as for the discipline of architecture to keep survive.
Atelier Archmixing is based in Shanghai, co-founded by ZHUANG Shen and REN Hao in July 2009, joined by TANG Yu and ZHU Jie. HUA Xiahong serves as the academic advisor. They are interested in two questions: 1) What has changed the existed buildings? 2) What will change the future buildings? They try to explore opportunities from all changes, using themselves as experiments.
About HUA Xiahong
Ms. HUA Xiahong is a full professor and doctoral advisor at Architecture Department from the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, a Chinese Registered Architect, a visiting fellow in the School of Architecture, Yale University, a visiting professor and researcher in Università IUAV di Venezia supported by CSC, the director for Tongji-UNIFI double degree master program. She is also the academic advisor for Atelier Archmixing and a part-time editor for Time+Architecture Magazine. Her academic interests include “Chinese Architects and Their Practices in Modern and Contemporary Times”, “Architectural Design as Modern Production and Organization”, “Contemporary Architecture in Consumer Culture” and “Everyday Urban Research and Regeneration Design Strategies for Ordinary Buildings”. She has co-authored Change is More: Architectural Thinking by Atelier Archmixing (2020), Sixty- year History of Tongji University Architectural Design Institute (2018) and Shanghai Hudec Architecture (2013) etc. Her writings have been featured in prestigious international academic journals such as Architectural Design, Architectural Research Quarterly, Perspecta: the Yale Architectural Journal, Cambridge Journal of China Studies, Built Heritage and leading Chinese architectural periodicals such as Architectural Journal, The Architect, Time+Architecture etc. As a practicing architect since 1995, she has designed projects of various types and won many design awards. The design team she serves since 2009 as the academic advisor, Atelier Archmixing is one of the pioneering independent practices in China, and has been the first Chinese architectural studio providing a solo exhibition in RIBA London (2022).