Articles by Collin Chen

Urban Space and Context Mining
The project is located 500 meters north of Xixi Wetland. The Xixi Wetland is special in that it integrates urban wetland, agricultural wetland and cultural wetland in one. However, the surge in population and ecological damage associated with urbanization have changed the quality of Xixi. The protection of the wetland promotes the dual benefits of urban economic culture. However, the seemingly win-win result of the protection of the wetland brought by the perfect migration of aborigines makes it difficult to reproduce the scenes where nature and life are intertwined, which is lamentable.

Joyze Hotel Xiamen, Curio Collection by Hilton is located in Zengcuo’an, Siming District, Xiamen City, with Dongping Mountain in the north and coastline in the south. Zengcuo’an has long become a safe haven for Xiamen’s foreign trading ports, remaining the traditional fishing village texture. Thus, designing a select hotel in such an area with significant site traits naturally lays emphasis on the continuation and development of the local culture.

As a traditional culture since Han Dynasty, tea drinking still plays an important part in Chinese people’s daily life. From the traditional Chinese tea ceremony to young people’s favorite tea drink brand HEYTEA, MOC DESIGN witnessed that traditional culture had stimulated many new forms as the advancement of the time.

The architect Lele Peng, designed an one-thousand-square-meters building in Baotou, it locates in a barren hill which has apparently been mined badly, and a dry riverside forest farm. Jian Zhang, the owner of the building is a local farmer, and he is also the owner of the forest farm. The building is used for B&B, field of beer and skittles has been named as “slow life” by Zhang. The farmer chooses Lele to design the building, can be written as a fantastic story about architecture and the change of aesthetic. Lele is famous for designing houses for artists, which means no matter the owner or the designer, the farmer or the architect, they all have nothing to do with the previous identities of Party A and Party B.

Like this Chinese poem, more than 1,000 years ago, Tao Yuanming, the Chinese famous poet, sailed on the lake to express his feelings on the landscape, depicting a paradise of ideal life. 1500 years later, when the fast-paced city life nearly obliterated people’s memory of their hometown, the tranquil life in nature as the one depicted by Tao in his poem is still the deep pursuit of every Chinese heart. Now, this ideal may be hidden in the small town of Tao’s hometown –“Blue City · Spring”