Articles by 胡天宝 - HU Tianbao

Canadian lifestyle brand Herschel Supply commissioned Linehouse to design their first China office, located in a Shanghai lane amongst an urban residential area. The site occupies an area where many old residential buildings are being demolished. Traces of these buildings remain, allowing glimpses of what Shanghai everyday life may have once been. Houses are stripped, revealing layers of materials, sectionally cut and voids are filled. This process of deconstruction and public vs. private was the driving narrative for the concept of the Herschel office.

Continuation of Spatial Context and Recovery of Urban Memory

From the architect. Naked Gallery is located in naked Stales, a resort at the foot of Moganshan. It is made up of four special pavilions, of which the Tea Pavilion is the largest one built along the lake. The Bamboo Art Pavilion and the Pottery Art Pavilion are places for guests to experience the traditional handicrafts. The Project Pavilion is the demonstration center of naked Gallery. It is a principle of naked Stables to give priority to the environmentally-friendly design concept. The designer interprets the ecological concept by combining traditional materials with modern waste materials. “Three 75%” ecological design idea is proposed, that is including 75% of sustainable and renewable materials, 75% of recyclable materials and 75% of work by local craftsmen.

Songzhuang has received a continuous influx of young artists and art-related industries in past few years. The local courtyard homes are now largely leased to outsiders and are in high demand. The small and medium-sized apartments, office buildings, galleries, and small businesses have developed naturally to satisfy local demand. In contrast to government-backed integrated development projects, Song Zhuang’s new construction projects are often funded and managed by multiple private parties.  Dongrun Apartments is one such collective endeavor.  

Dynamic experience of architecture

The lady of the house, who designs wedding invitations for a living, has a soul molded by plate making, compression molding, laser engraving, and hot foil stamping, has, in the fragrance brand Mad et Len, found the mesmerizing texture that came of limited and simple ease of handicraft. The space became a fragrant art, where the warmth of life become the best way to extract the smell of memory, and allows the habits of the owners, such as triathlon and reading, to become ethereal and spread into the air. The raised multi-layer bookshelf walls and display racks refines the personality and images of the residence. The simple colors and handmade work from the artisan aids the feel of the media such as hand painted and steel brushed veneer materials to replace the clean mechanical feel. On various white background materials, the line and color blocks are fermenting in minimalism, creating a division of order and spatial displacement.

The site for this artist studio is on lake shore where the shore starts to turn from west to south. The topography change brought a site condition in which the west and south periphery is 4-6 meter high retaining walls, leaving east open to lake view and north facing the neighbor at immediate adjacency. Implied by the nature of the site, we sought a piece of architecture that integrates into the topography and becomes landscape.

Ying Galley’s new location is inside a yard surrounded by two story buildings. Between the yard wall and the buildings there is an ally (28m * 3-3.6m). The ally was for outside maintenance, the landlord added a roof to it and closed it with a door at each end to yield more rental spaces.

An urban renewal project in the dense area of a post- industrial city