NINGBO TENGTOU PAVILION [Social_Responsive_Vernacular]

Project: Ningbo Tengtou Pavillion, Shanghai, China, 2010

Architect/Designer: Amateur Architecture Studio, Wang Shu, Principal

Sources: http://www.worldarchitects.com/en/amateur

Featured material:  Reused/Repurpose brick+tiles

Responding to current China’s thirst for impatient¹ urbanization, Architect Wang Shu from Amateur Architecture Studio, designs buildings fusing Chinese culture and traditional construction methods into modern forms using recycled/repurposed materials from demolished/displaced Chinese communities.  The Ningbo Tengtou Pavilion was part of the Expo 2010 Shanghai China exhibition representing the city of Ningbo, China, in response to urbanized villages in China. The pavilion seeks to achieve a balance between the rapid development of tourism and the need to protect the eco-environment.  The materials selected for the pavilion, not only depicts the particularities from the Chinese culture and the Tengtou village local materials, but it also shows a dialog between culture, nature, and the human senses.

This project was selected to be analyzed as a material interrogation assignment for its unique meaning in response to the social/political circumstance of Chinese rapid urbanization, and the uncertainties its construction method.  All as an attempt to re-interpret Wang Shu’s design methods.  Focus was given where the use of materials (recycle bricks/roof tiles and a bamboo lattice)  were joined with what appears to be a metal corner frame.  The intended research traced on traditional Jiang Nan folk house elements and the Eco-experience Zone elements used to represent agricultural and natural characteristics of the Tengtou village.

1. impatient architecture – term used by architect/urban designer/educator, Rahul Mehrotra on Sept. 19, 2012, UMN Lecture

Synthesized features:

– Properties:

• light weight, practical
• flexible composition, shapes, and intricate patterns
• re-purposed/ re-used

– Applications:

• exterior/interior

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