Advanced Design Studio - Plattus

This studio will be the twelfth year of the Yale School of Architecture China Studio, but the first year of a new collaboration between Yale and Tsinghua University School of Architecture in Beijing. With this studio, we are also launching a projected three-year investigation of urban development and redevelopment in the historic and contemporary Chinese capital city, with a particular emphasis on models of sustainable mixed-use and neighborhood development, in part funded by a grant from the YSoA Hines Fund. Over the next three years the China Studio will study the impact of preservation, infill and new development on three sites along the historic axis of Beijing, moving from the center outward to the urban periphery.

Past China Studios have mainly explored the impact of large scale globalized development projects on the city of Shanghai, considering historic and contemporary patterns of urban life, culture and urban space in that most Western and modern of Chinese cities. This year’s studio will not only move to the city most closely associated, by Chinese and the world, with traditional Chinese city planning and architecture, as well as the center of political and cultural authority in the new China, but will also focus on an area in the very heart of the historic center, immediately adjacent to the walls and moat of the Forbidden City itself. Documenting and analyzing historic and emergent patterns of space and use in this area, students will be asked to understand critically the roles of preservation and new infill development in both protecting and opening up this area, while developing and applying new models and guidelines for sustainable neighborhood development to their projects. The roles of landscape, water, transportation, public and private space, traditional and new typologies and uses, as well as traditional and contemporary building techniques and materials will all be part of the discussion.

As in past studios, Yale students will travel to China, tour the site and other relevant sites and projects in and around Beijing, meet with local planning officials, and, most importantly, collaborate with their counterparts, graduate students at Tsinghua University, to develop preliminary site analysis and design concepts This interaction will continue throughout the term via video conferencing, and Tsinghua students and faculty have been invited to participate in final reviews at Yale. All students considering participating in the studio should make sure that they have a current passport in their possession, with sufficient space for a Chinese visa.