Harmonious Beijing is seeking a new vision of urbanization and urban mobility for Beijing in 2030. It will adopt a "subway first" development model to replace the "road first" growth model, and new urban developments will take place only along the new series of subway rings of this powerful transportation system. The infrastructure system, a ring of interconnected subway lines and meta-mountains around the city, will form a "linear city center" that can accommodate all kinds of urban programs with a highly efficient and convenient public transportation system. Inside the city, the current roads will be upgraded into "travel belts", electrically driven belts that move vehicles and people around the city at a speed of 60 to 80 km/h. People will not be allowed to drive their cars while on the belts, thus dramatically reducing carbon emissions and at the same time changing lifestyles of the time that people spend on the road.

Zhang Ke, Sie haben neulich beim Audi Urban Future Award teilgenommen und lhre Präsentation unter anderem mit sehr ironischen Bildern aus der Kulturrevolution ,,gewürzt". Wie unkonventionell darf eine Projektvorstellung sein?
Ist das Spiel mit der radikal kommunistischen Zeichensprache nicht defätistisch?

When architect Zhang Ke set up Standardarchitecture in Beijing, he chose the name because "it sounds neutral. It doesn't imply any specific form," he says. But for a studio that's on a roll, in a country stuck in fast-forward, perhaps it's equally fitting that the firm recently adopted the shorter alias START (as in Standard Architecture Team). "For every project, we want a completely new start, to throw off all preconceptions - like we're almost pretending we don't know anything," says Zhang Ke. Founded in 2001, and now including partners Zhang Hong and Claudia Taborda (a Lisbon-based landscape architect), Standard is positioned at the forefront of China's latest generation of emerging architects. It takes each brief as a new point of departure - a series of existing givens - and has shown itself flexible enough to explore projects both massive and small, spectacular and understated.

Education Bachelor of Architecture 1993 and Master of Architecture and Urban Design 1996, Tsinghua University, School of Architecture 
Foreign Experience Master of Architecture at Harvard University, Graduate School of Design (GSD), Boston, USA (1998) 
Office Founder and partner of Standardarchitecture

Venedig, Ende Augttst 2010. Die „Scuola Grande de la Misericordia“ steht zumeist recht unbeachtet in einem ruhigen Viertel von Venedig. Der mächtige Backsteinbau ist eine Mischung aus Kirche und Zunfthaus und seit 500 Jahren unvollendet. Vor zehn Jahren verschandelte man sie mit groben Betoneinbauten sogar zur Sporthalle, irgendwann soll einmal ein Konzertsaal daraus werden. Im Sommer 2010, anlässlich der Architektur-Biennale, wurde das Gebäude dann ganz unerwartet genutzt: Als Zukunfts-Werkstatt. Im methaphorischen Sinne wurde die Scuola Grande de la Misericordia zu einer riesigen Glaskugel, in die die Auguren schauten, um Umrisse unserer künftigen Lebenswelt zu erkennen.

By using local construction techniques and materials, this project makes a strong contrast between artificial elements and the natural landscape in Tibet. The building relates to the surrounding landscape through wall openings and its unique form and geometry. Colors are used to highlight transitional spaces, and yield a contemporary interpretation of traditional Tibetan architecture.

Mirui Road is a tourist road that meets Highway 318 connecting Tibet and Sichuan province This road meanders southwards along the Niyang River. Within this 20km distance to the Brahmaputra Canyon, the specific terrain and landscape of Niyang River can be enjoyed from the road. Daze Village was chosen to be the entrance to this tourist attraction. There is little land left for further development in this village, therefore the river beach along the road was the only choice for the site of a tourist center.

Beijing has in the past 20 years re-invented itself from a historic city into a “futuristic” city. The city expanded outwards through one and yet more Ring Roads. This “road first” and “simply sprawling outward” way of planning has become a typical model of Chinese Urbanization.

In the year 2009, while cities suffocate on their last breath, three eggs were laid in a street by Beijing. Two were discovered by standardarchitecture, which immediately grasped their potential as a new life form

Zhang's series of architecture in the Yalu Tsangpo Canyon area tries to explore modern architectural ideas in a modern tibet．He accomplishes this using his own modern style without the traditional striking curved windows or the more modern red plastic roofs，yet still maintaining a truely tibetian atmosphere to the building．

Teilnehmer Alison Brooks Architects, London | BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group, Kopenhagen | Cloud 9 - Enric Ruiz-Gell, Barcelona | Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York | Jürgen Mayer H., Berlin | Standardarchitecture - Zhang Ke, Beijing
Zhang Ke schlägt für Beijing 2030 elektrisch betriebene Gürtel vor, auf denen „Audi-Bubbles“ ein „mobiles Quasi-Zuhause“ bieten, Räume der Arbeit oder der Entspannung. Sie sind von einern Ring grüner Türme umstellt.

The Niyang river visitor centre by Beijing-based architect StandardArchitecture is ostensibly a very simple building. Situated on a popular tourist road in Tibet, and surrounded by awe-inspiring scenery, it offers space for rest, toilets and a ticket office. But the building is in a dialogue with its surroundings. Its stark, angular, minimal form was built using local materials and techniques resulting in a rich mix of contemporary and traditional, firmly in the "critical regionalist" mode.

Mirui Road is a tourist road that meets Highway 318 connecting Tibet and Sichuan province. This road meanders southwards along the Niyang River. Within this 20km distance to the Brahmaptra Canyon, the specific terrain and landscape of Niyang River can be enjoyed from the road. Daze Village was chosen to be the entrance to this tourist attraction. There is little land left for further development in this village, therefore the river beach along the road was the only choice for the site of a tourist center.

Un muro lungo 500 metri racchiude una serie di edifici a due piani che si susseguono in un continuo disegno di pareti bianche ripiegate a disegnare volumi compatti e corti interne. L'accesso si trova sul lato est; attraverso una scala inserita nello spessore del muro di cinta si accede a una passerella che conduce al secondo piano del primo volume. Tra il muro a sud e la serie di edifici si snoda una fitta macchia di bambu, mentre l'intero blocco è circondato e attraversato da canali d'acqua.

In the year 2009, while cities suffocate on their last breath, three eggs were laid in a street by Beijing. Two were discovered by standardarchitecture, which immediately grasped their potential as a new life form

Gongbu - the south-eastern kingdom that Buddhist master Padmasambhava called the Capital of the Dead - refuses to celebrate New Year on the same day as the rest of Tibet. In Gongbu, it falls on the first day of the tenth month of the Tibetan calendar, for reasons that drift back 700 years, to the reign of King Ajiejiebu. The people of Gongbu say - they've always said - that although King Niechi gave them their independence, it's the heroic Ajiejicbu they should thank for their courage. One year, as deep autumn turned to winter, Ajiejiebu called every fighting man together, to meet an invading army that had broken in through the region's northern rim. But thoughts of the fat pork and barley wine of New Year had driven all the fighting spirit out of the braves of Gongbu. So Ajiejiebu decided to shift the New Yezt to the first day of the tenth month. Their celebrations completed, the merry men of Gongbu marched fearlessly off to rout their enemy in battle. But it was in the last campaign of the war, legend goes, that Ajiejiebu was killed, and his head and limbs hacked from his body. As they marched home, the sons of Gongbu carried aloft the dismembered torso of their leader, their songs of victory saddened by funeral bugles.

Zhang Ke graduated with a Master of Architecture in Urban Design at Tsinghua University in 1996 and a Master of Architecture at Harvard Universityin 1998. In 1999 he established standardarchitecture in New York, a professional partnership formed with a group of international young designers. In 2001 standardarchitecture moved to Beijing, following the good results of several important projects in China. Today the office has four principals:

These stalagmites appear in Zhang Ke's work not for the first time. Such unique and characteristic form reminds people of a Karst landscape. This may be traced back to Ke Zhang's early practice as an architect in Guilin of South-West China. Apparently，Guilin's mountain and waterscapes provide a perfect image of Chinese nature, which is familiar to all of us.

The small boat terminal is located near the small village named Pai Town in the Linzhi area of Tibet Autonomous Region. As the remotest stop along the Yaluntzangpu River, it allows both local people and travelers from outside to transport by water deep into the valley and come to the foot of the Namchabawa Snow Mountain.

As the SIA readies itself for Archifest 2009, its Malaysian counterpart PAM recently hosted Datum: KL at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. With "Basic Design: the New Intelligence?" as its poser, the forum invited international speakers to deal with the subject in culturally diverse ways. The speakers this year included Dutch architect Winy Maas, China's Zhang Ke, Japan's Junya Ishigami, Malaysian Hud Abu Bakar, Briton Stephen Pimbley and Austrian architect Roman Delugan. The moderator for the event was Lawrence Liauw from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Kevin Mark Low recounts what he took away from the forum.

Awards Preise
2008 Young Architects Award of China Architectural Media Award (CAMA)
2006 WA Award (Winner), World Architecture Magazine
Important Projects Wichtige Projekte
2008 Namchabawa Visitor Centre, Tibet
2008 Yaluntzangpu BoatTerminal, Linzhi, Tibet
2008 Suzhou "An" ClubTea House, Suzhou
2008 Namchabawa MulberryTree Contemplation, Linzhi, Tibet
2007 Qingcheng Mountain Stone CourtyardTeahouse, Chengdu
2005 French Chinese Art Centre, Wuhan
2005 Yangshuo Storefronts, Guilin
2003 Beijing Dongbianmen Ming Dynasty Relics Park

Founded in 1999, standardarchitecture is a professional partnership formed by a group of international young designers. Originally established in New York, the office has gradually relocated its main base to Beijing in 2001. The office now has four principals: Ke Zhang, Hong Zhang, Zhenghua Hun, and Claudia Taborda. Their projects are not limited to historic sites, engaged in practices of architecture, landscape architecture, interior, and industrial design.

Standardarchitecture, founded in 1999, is a professional partnership formed by a group of international young designers engaged in practices of architecture, landscape architecture，interior, and product design. Originally established in New York, the firm has gradually relocated its main base to Beijing in 2001, after winning several important projects there.

Zhang Ke's presentation focused on basic design based an investigative approach. He adopts a concept-oriented style, taking a radical and instrumental path instead of just following anyone. His buildings resonate with a latent intelligence. Starting from the landscape, each building grows into a complete structure that takes the surrounding environment into account.

The work is a result of a series of experimental ideas, which sometimes appear in our architectural practice, and some of them have become the key word of our projects, whereas others still remains in our minds. It is part of the “Un-Natural” exhibition sponsored by Formica.

Since standardarchitecture happened to have renovated the same two modules next to the “backyard” two years ago, as an experiment this time we choose to renovate the space with a completely different departure point.

standardarchitecture, founded in 1999, is a professional partnership formed by a group of international young designers engaged in practices of architecture, landscape architecture, interior, and industrial design. Originally established in New York, the firm has gradually relocated its main base to Beijing in 2001, after winning several important projects there.

Since 2001, Standard Architecture has been actively involved in many public architecture designs and competitions in China. Standard has done many projects utilizing local culture and local materials. They believe that the globalization and the internationalization of architecture in China are not simply copied from western style or technology. The locality is the very source of a global architecture. The architects have deeply studied the local condition, tradition and culture, and have tried to innovate using the local character and context. This way of thinking can be seen in Standard Architecure's Wuhan French-Chinese Art Center. They believe that the cultural value of architecture is as important as its economical value.

Qingcheng Mountain Stone Courtyard, Chengdu
Architect：standardarchitecture
Location: Qingcheng Mountain, Daguan Town, Chengdu, Sichuan
Design / Construction: 2005 / 2007
Area: 480㎡
Architects: Zhang Ke, Zhang Hong, Wang Andong, Liu Yabo, Wang Tong, Hao Zengrui, Carla Maria Freitas Gon?alves, Liu Xinjie, Yang Xinrong, Zhang Zhengfan
Client: Sichuan jinlian Corporation
Photographer: Chen Su

This exhibition centre is located within a residential area called Phoenix City in the centre of the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province. The centre is close to the Yangtze River and the Wuchang quarter, a neighbourhood known for its historic association to key academic and literary figures in Chinese history. The design of the building is inspired by the ink and water brushstrokes of traditional Chinese scripts and scrolls. Clad in concrete, the centre is planned as two blocks facing one another across a 30 m (98.4 ft) wide public space, with a large reflecting pool. The space is enclosed by a 5.5 m (18 ft) high hollow concrete wall that connects the two blocks and is aligned along the Zhongshan Road. The remaining edge opens out to the rest of the residential development. The roadside facade, including the connecting wall, expresses the idea of calligraphy through irregular and elongated shapes cut into its surface, providing windows into the interior. This irregular pattern continues onto the roof to provide a series of diagonal, elongated skylights for the internal galleries. The external glazing on the north facades is more regular, and the two facades facing the interior open area are clad completely in glass. Inside, the polished wood floor provides a graceful contrast with the industrial concrete of the walls.

The 7782 meter high Mount Namchabawa, a 1300 year old mulberry tree, its canopy about 40 meters wide, a few huge rocks off the road to the last village Jiala in the depth of Yaluntzangpu Grand Canyon.

The visitor centre is the second building designed by standardarchitecture in Tibet after the Yaluntzangpu Boat Terminal. It is located in a small village called Pai Town in Linzhi area, southeastern part of Tibet autonomous region.

standardarchitecture (Zhang Ke, Zhang Hong, Claudia Taborda + Hou Zhenghua)
Zhang Ke graduated from Tsinghua University School of Architecture and then from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, after which he worked in New York. His practice, standardarchitecture (SA), was officially founded in 2001, in Beijing (evolving from his private practice in New York which he had established two years earlier) based on a long-distance collaboration with partner Zhang Hong, an experienced architect from Tsinghua's Architectural Design and Research Institute. Landscape architect Claudia Taborda, from Portugal, whom Zhang met at Harvard, and Hou Zhenghua complete the partnership.

Le premier, Zhang Ke, 38 ans, est peut-être pLus à l'aise pour avoir ajouté le diplôme de Harvard à celui de Tsinghua. Le second, 41 ans, a également fait l'expérience de deux universités, Tsinghua et le département d'architecture de L'université de Nankin.

Located on Chengfu Road between Beijing University and Tsinghua University, urban backyard is renovated from part of a 10-module typical factory space. About 280 square meters in its size and measures at 12m(width) x 24m(depth) x 8m(height), the space occupies 2 modules of the overall 10 module industrial space.

The small boat terminal is located near the small village named Pai Town in the Linzhi area of Tibet Autonomous Region. As the remotest stop along the Yaluntzangpu River, it allows both local people and travelers from outside to transport by water deep into the valley

The Dancing Books Tower are situated in a densely populated downtown area near Hongshan plaza of the historic district of Wuchang, with Yangtze River about two kilometers to the south, Dong Hu Lake 1.5 km to the north, and the well known Huang-He Lou Watch Tower about 5 km to the west.

standardarchitecture, founded in 1999, is a professional partnership formed by a group of young designers from China and Europe with an interest in architecture, landscape architecture, interior and industrial design. Originally established in New York, the firm has gradually relocated its main base to Beijing, after receiving several large commissions there.

Say the words "new Chinese architecture" and what springs to mind? Ambitious skyscrapers, soaring apartment blocks, Olympian designs in central Beijing by celebrated international architects, and the unbridled kitsch of suburban estates like Thames Town, a bizarre mock-English development near Shanghai.

The Dancing Books Tower are situated in a densely populated downtown area near Hongshan Plaza of the historic district of Wuchang, with Yangtze River 2 km to the south, Dong Hu Lake 1.5 km to the north, and Huang-He Lou Watch Tower 5 km to the west.

An impression of Hong Kong is (that) all of the lands are extremely precious, and extremely densely occupied. And it is really surprising to see (that) there are such big pieces of land at West Kowloon and the Airport site is still vacant.

Public open spaces in residential developments are a new concept in China. "Dancing Triangles" is one of the first housing projects that has a public plaza to meet new local government stipulations for the provision of open space. How the local population will use such spaces remains to be seen.

The club is formed by a folding wall of 500M long, which also encloses 13 separating courtyards. A delicate bias cuts through the building and guides people to enjoy the experience of “a different view with every step” within the spaces and landscapes.

The project involves the interplay of courtyards over various levels arranged on a long narrow plan. People first encounter the high-walled entrance courtyard and continue through to the inner courtyard that operates as double-height living room.

The “Stone Courtyard” Tea House is located close to Daguan Town at the foot of the Qingcheng Mountain near Chengdu. With total area of 500 square meters, the tea house is actually comprised of five separate courtyard buildings that stand very close to each other.

Is it possible nowadays to begin an article featuring a young Chinese architecture firm without mentioning a globally felt sense of amazement at the speed and scale of China’s building process? Is it even conceivable to proceed to the main subject without an introduction that touches on all sorts of architectural, urban, social, public and environmental issues? In short, can a team of young Chinese architects be considered on their own merits, or is our universal knowledge of the problems facing Chinese architecture as a whole essential to an evaluation of their work? Clearly, seen from a Western perspective, the latter is still the case. The implications of China’s urbanization process are not yet fully understood, and our fascination with the countless problems and possibilities involved is simply mind-boggling. An impressive series of exhibitions and publications (some still pending), appearing mostly in Europe, invariably looks at the work of young Chinese architects (the so-called avant-garde) from this point of view. Their projects seldom or never receive individual attention, therefore, but rather fulfil a primarily exemplary function. Paradoxically enough, these designs are anything but representative of contemporary Chinese architecture; the few that are shown make up only a fraction of China’s total building production, and the architects in question are exceptions to the rule, as they use their designs to aim a critical response at conflicts in a constantly changing urban context.

The small neighborhood is built on a block of 2300 sqm and is comprised of five small alleys and six separate buildings. The buildings occupy the entire boundary of the site, and the main alleys inside work as continuations of the neighboring urban fabric, We adopted a native way to have the main alleys point toward the major mountains nearby, namely the Lotus and the Dragon Head Mountain, As a result of this layout, all the six buildings become irregular in their plans. On the ground floor there are small shops and the shop owners live on these floors each have a bathroom and a kitchen. They could function either as apartments or as shops. Passing through the bridges linking each building, people will always find special views toward the surrounding Karst Mountains.

Standardarchitecture, founded in 1999 in New York, is a professional partnership formed by a group of international young designers engaged in practices of architecture, landscape architecture, interior, and industrial design.

domus：Why name the studio"Standardarchitecture"?
Zhang Ke：We like this name. On one hand, it is a neutral word, and doesn't imply anything physical; on the other hand, we chose "standardard" and "architecture" as a single word to indicate that we focus more on the nature of architecture. In the past, we called the construction team "Standard Factoty". Thus, at this juncture, we would like to pay more attention to construction and new discoveries in the process of it and try to figure out how to build contemporary architecture in the most essential way. Therefore, although most of our projects are not important to the market, they are all very interesting.

domus：What is your individual working method?
Zhang Ke：We try to immerse ourselves in an open environment of inspiration. Before designing, we survey the project in a liberal designig, we survey the project in a liberal way, discussing the social context behind it. There may also occur some construction innovations. Evety time a project starts, we always feel at a loss; we don't want to repeat ourselves. This is the biggest difficulty at the beginning of a project. However, we have confidence that if we view things from the most basic perspectives, we can have professional results, and a little differently. Take the restoration of a hotel for example: we would ask why the guests stay in a hotel. Do they need a room for a sleep, or a space for communication? Sometimes we may ignore things that are obvious, but when we focus on what is most necessary and most superfluous, all the basic questions, we can get the most essential conclusion.
Every generation of architects would have encountered nearly the same challenges. The essential issues of constructing a dwelling today is close to 3,000 years ago, but if you resort to diverse solutions, the conclusions will be different... which does not mean one is essentially distinguished from another.
We pursue precision, reliability, and attention to detail.

domus：How does the studio stick to the original concepts, the integration and the reaction to the site?
Zhang Ke：In our opinion, it is vital to maintain original concepts. laeally, supposing all the details are nearly the same as the original concepts, the desired final results inspire vision and emotions in people when using this space. It might be the first step, or the first doorknob they grasp. In each of our projects, which brings us big problems, and we have to admit that it is a kind of an idealistic tendency. Therefore, the "struggle for freedom" may vividly repersent our process.
Another characteristic is integration. It covers wider areas: from urban planning to interior design, and landscape design. The project we won in Yangshuo was a planning competition. The client offered us a small site to construct a building and what we did was to divide the building into several streets, and designed the interiors as well as the landscapes.
The third is construction supervision. The ideal situation would be to go to the site twice a week, so we choose our projects catefully, no matter how big or how small.

domus：Do you have preferred materials?
Zhang Ke：We prefer original materials. We are testiong a new material on an already built building; the material is made by pressing wood boards and plexiglas together to detemine how to use them as both structure and layer.

domus：Why do you use urban fabric as the starting point of design?
Zhang Ke：We discuss the urban fabric more in a perspective of landscape, not in sociological terms, because we cannot imagine changing society through architecture, which makes our usage of material different from the Utopian ideage. Achitects can only develop a more harmonious environment for human and nature. 
Considering the landscape, we would consider the city and its surroundings or the inner or public contractions of space as a landscape in the broadest sense. But our regard for landscape does not mean we ultimately engage in the urban fabric, since what we desire is a clear relationship: perhaps engagement, detachment, or even confrontation. At this moment we engage in urban practices, but we also aim to make contributions to the modern culture of a future China.


Wuhan CRIand French-Chinese Art Centre
The site of the art center is located across the street from the Wuchang Tanhualin historic area, less than 2 kilometers away from the historic Huanghelou tower on the Yangtzi River. The expectation of the building was an important public space for the city and a monument for both the past and the ongoing transtormation of the city. The fact that many famous Chinese intellectuals lived in the Tanhualin area actoss the street inspired us. We were interested in testing the possibilities of building something out of the ancient Chinses intellectual practice of ink and water. The art centre was conceived as an urban container, within which art objects, events, acts, concepts and activities flourish. In this case the container is made out of intuitive images of ink-and-water.

While the site conditions also take part in the formation of spaces: since the site is cut into halves by an unexpected urban infrastructure (a flood pipeline), the 30-meter-wide outdoor space became the central courtyard for spatial organization, around it seat the east and west exhibition halls and the floating bridge linking the two parts. In the 80-meter-long concrete bridge, the ink-water stroke texture coincides with the necessary structural elements for the 5.5-meter-high concrete hollow beam. This becomes an interesting moment when an image merges seamlessly with a structure.

Auditorium Wuyi primary school 
The new auditorium has a seating capacity of 520 and is for the use of both the school and the residents of the adjacent neighborhood. The hall is used for stage performances, films and school events. The auditorium is separated from the school by a square yard. The school is an unobtrusive four-storey block, to which the expressive form of the auditorium forms a strong contrast. Its characteristic folded red roof makes it a striking feature of the neighborhood.

Winkelcomplex Yangshuo
Het complex met winkels op de begane grond en woningen daarboven ligt in het centrum van de kleine toeristenstad Yangshuo. De stad wordt in her oosten begrensd door de Lijiang-rivier, aan de drie overage zijden door bijzondere karstbergen. Aan het ontwerp is eerst een studie naar lokaal materiaalgebruik en bouwtechnieken voorafgegaan. Aangezien de beschikbare locatie te groot bleek voor één gebouw, besloot Standardarchitecture het programma in een aantal kleinere gebouwen met daartussen smalle straten onder te brengen. In de lay-out is rekening gehouden met de locale traditie om vanuit de belangrijkste stegen zicht te houden op de omliggende bergen, in dit geval op de Groene Lotus-berg en de Drakenhoofd-berg. In dit project heft Standardarchitecture voornamelijk geëxperimenteerd met de constructiemoge-lijkheden van locale materialen. Hiervoor zijn vier materialen gebruikt: een blauwgroene steen, larikshout, kleine zwarte dakpannen en bamboerepen. De experimenteerdrift is het duidelijkst zichtbaar bij de centrale hal. Het gebouw heft met een scherm van bamboerepen een tweede huid gekregen; de repen staan op enige afstand van elkaar haaks op de muur en geven een zeer bijzonder visueel effect aan de façade.

Standardarchitecture in perspective 
Toward History: The studio of standardarchitecture is hidden within an old Sinica warehouse sandwiched between Tsinghua and Beijing University campus. During past half decade, standardarchitecture moved from a rented residential apartment to this current location, an exquisitely renovated large-span wooden structure built in the 1950’s with Soviet aid. The original architectural and landscape elements have been fully preserved or restored to its inherent essence. Their design intervention seems not want to affect the daily operations of the vicinity, and opts light in site planning and design. Such approach is a clear embodiment of standardarchitecture’s consistent attitude toward original information regarding the site. Maybe this attitude subtly manipulated their selections of projects, Projects such as  Beijing Dongbianmen City Wall Park, Beijing White Pagoda, historical community of Yangshuo, and Xian City Wall Landscape, nonetheless exemplify a re-intervention of design to site’s history.

STANDARDARCHITECTURE STUDIO SPACE, BEIJING, CHINA, 2005 
ARCHITECTS: standardarchitecture
The project is the conversion of a rundown 1950's Soviet time brick auditorium into standardarchitecture's own design studio space. The site is in a factory compound adjacent to the campuses of Beijing University and Tsinghua University. Measured about 350 sqm in its size, the building's function has been shifted from movie theatre, dining hall, classroom, warehouse to gymnasium. The conversion design tends to re-adept the building for the new function in a subtle way.

The “dancing triangles” park is located in a Shanghai Pudong area that is currently under crazy urban development. Its surroundings are mixed with left-over village houses, wholesale construction material warehouses, small factories and new housing compounds.

ABSTRACT Standardarchitecture's work CRLand Art Centre conceived as a container of arts, within which art objects, events, acts, concepts and activities flourish. The coherence of the site is abruptly interrupted by an unusual urban condition, hence the consequential design's visual revelation of the physical presence of the underground infrastructure. The design involves the play of ink-water from calligraphy as a joyfui mental reverie to explore the elasticity of the boundary between archite and art.

Not far a small street front store opens early morning before daylight till late into the night. The hard working shop owners live upstairs in the same building and enjoy a peaceful inner wooden courtyard.

The site is located at the very centre of yangshuo town.It is surrounded by moumtains from three sides: north,south and east; to the west, only about two minutes walk is the well known Lijiang River.

The project is the conversion of a rundown 1950’s Soviet time brick auditorium into standardarchitecture’s own design studio space. The site is in a factory compound adjacent to the campuses of Beijing University and Tsinghua University.

The site of the art centre is located across the street from the Wuchang Tanhualin historic area, about one mile away from the historic Huanghelou tower on the Yangtzi River.

The small neighborhood is built on a block of 2300 sqm and is comprised of five small alleys and six separate buildings. The buildings occupy the entire boundary of the site.

Nach dent Architekturstudium an der Tsinghua-Universität machte der 1970 in Anhui geborene ZHANG Ke 1998 seinen Master an der Harvard University, wo er Claudia Taborda kennenlernte. Diese, 1965 in Lissabon zur Welt gekommen, studierte in Harvard Landschaftsarchitektur, wie zuvor bereits in England und Portugal. Gemeinsam mit ZHANG Hong, geboren 1967 in Peking, gründeten sie 1999 ein Büro in New York, das aufgrund einiger Erfolge bei wichtigen Wettbe-werben ab 2001 nach Peking verlagert wurde. Projektschwerpunkte sind neben der Architektur Landschafts-und Innenarchitektur sowie Industriedesign.

An der Stadtmauer aus der Ming Dynastie in unmittelbarer Nähe des pekinger Bahnhofs entstand auf 1,5 Kilometer Länge ein neuer Landschaftspark. Der Entwurf verzichtet auf große Gesten, nimmt stattdessen die Geschichte des Ortes auf und entwickelt sie weiter.

What is the architecture that interests us? What is the architecture that we played with, and dreamed of day and night? What is our building’s reasons of being?

The old city wall at Dongbianmen is Beijing's only remaining section of ifs Ming Dynasty City Wall. An international competition, organized by Beijing Planning Committee, was held recently in search of ideas to make a cultural landscape park on the site. The competition has drawn quite a few proposals. Among them, the scheme submitted collaboratively by Standard Architecture and Urban Planning & Design Institute of Tsinghua won the support of the entire jury. The proposal, as concluded by the selecting committee, put an emphasis on the preservation and revelation of the site's historical layers; and successfully created a place in which the meaning of the wall as a historic landmark is self-evident; at the same time, provided feasible solutions for problems of transportation, environment and maintenance. The proposal has now been accepted for realization. The first article here provides a detailed analysis of the project's background. The second is a reflection on the project, provided by the designer, from angles of architecture, landscape, urban planning and historic preservation. In the end, another article also gives a brief introdution on the project which won the third prize in this competition. 

Key words: Historic preservation, Cultural landscape, Urban fabric, City life, Intervention, Coexist, Weave