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Condition_Lab is a Design Research Laboratory based within the School of Architecture at CUHK. Established in 2018, our primary focus is to improve people’s lives through design.
The Lab’s research resolves around designing socially responsible architectural prototypes. By working hand-in-hand with local partners on real sites, our aim is to develop projects that foster a better sense of community. The prototype acts as a vessel to generate new knowledge about how people inhabit their environment.
Our philosophy revolves around the paradox embedded into the word “condition”, as a noun it refers to a context, a circumstance, or a situation, while as a verb it implies change - to condition something based on an original state.
Condition_Lab © 2021 School of Architecture,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
All Projects
︎︎︎Research
︎︎︎Teaching
︎︎︎Design
News
People
Contact
Outreach
Facebook
Instagram
Issuu
Wechat
Condition_Lab is a Design Research Laboratory based within the School of Architecture at CUHK. Established in 2018, our primary focus is to improve people’s lives through design.
The Lab’s research resolves around designing socially responsible architectural prototypes. By working hand-in-hand with local partners on real sites, our aim is to develop projects that foster a better sense of community. The prototype acts as a vessel to generate new knowledge about how people inhabit their environment.
Inhabited Library
Yunnan
Yunnan
INHABITED WALL
The idea behind this building is to cre-ate an “inhabited wall” around the pe-rimeter of the site. The wall becomes the library creating a designed Inside/Outside experience for the community to experience. The inner space is lit-erally a sequence of connected rooms inside the thickness of the wall, an in-terstitial space of knowledge, acting as an elongated village living room where people stay and look out to the garden. The outer space is a courtyard inspired by the traditional Chinese academy courtyard, a place to debate and contemplate readings in contact with nature and the elements.
A SOCIAL POETIC SPACE
At the heart of our concept is the no-tion of creating a new social space for the village, a gathering venue where people can disconnect for their dai-ly chores and embrace the poetry of reading. The library is seen as a path, where visitors can choose a fast or slow route, choose to engage or dis-connect while always being connected to the local context. We have kept two key conponents of the original com-plex, firstly the outer perimeter wall as a historical trace of the building’s previous life and the pitched roof steel canopy which allows courtyard spac-es to be protected from the elements.
PARTICIPATORY MATERIALS
The new inhabited wall is made with abobe bricks, a local material that al-lows the wall to act as a sustainable living membrane rather than a sealed artificial air-conditioned space that could be anywhere in the country. Fur-niture such as shelves, seats and ta-bles are all inbuilt into the wall and also built from indigenous sourced timber. Rather than the building being built by a team of outside contractors we are proposing that we create simple brick making devise hwre through local par-ticipation the community could build their own bricks and a team of dedi-cated workers help erect them into the wall. Village participation is crucial for the future success of the library.
Design Team
The idea behind this building is to cre-ate an “inhabited wall” around the pe-rimeter of the site. The wall becomes the library creating a designed Inside/Outside experience for the community to experience. The inner space is lit-erally a sequence of connected rooms inside the thickness of the wall, an in-terstitial space of knowledge, acting as an elongated village living room where people stay and look out to the garden. The outer space is a courtyard inspired by the traditional Chinese academy courtyard, a place to debate and contemplate readings in contact with nature and the elements.
A SOCIAL POETIC SPACE
At the heart of our concept is the no-tion of creating a new social space for the village, a gathering venue where people can disconnect for their dai-ly chores and embrace the poetry of reading. The library is seen as a path, where visitors can choose a fast or slow route, choose to engage or dis-connect while always being connected to the local context. We have kept two key conponents of the original com-plex, firstly the outer perimeter wall as a historical trace of the building’s previous life and the pitched roof steel canopy which allows courtyard spac-es to be protected from the elements.
PARTICIPATORY MATERIALS
The new inhabited wall is made with abobe bricks, a local material that al-lows the wall to act as a sustainable living membrane rather than a sealed artificial air-conditioned space that could be anywhere in the country. Fur-niture such as shelves, seats and ta-bles are all inbuilt into the wall and also built from indigenous sourced timber. Rather than the building being built by a team of outside contractors we are proposing that we create simple brick making devise hwre through local par-ticipation the community could build their own bricks and a team of dedi-cated workers help erect them into the wall. Village participation is crucial for the future success of the library.
Design Team
Prof. Peter W. Ferretto
WANG Haoran Howard
CHEUNG Kat Fu Eric
Competiton Info
︎︎︎https://www.aki.com.cn/jinfang?l=en
