Articles by Yu Xin Li

Out of all the buildings on the Shanghai Qingpu Pinghe International School Campus designed by OPEN, the Sports Center gives the greatest impression of lightness—two round-cornered, translucent volumes floating above a transparent box. Inside this glass box, is the school’s canteen, and above it, seemingly suspended within two rectangular “Air Capsules”, are the campus gymnasium and swimming pool. The building is intentionally sited on the north corner of the campus, where its proximity to the street and the secondary entrance of the school will facilitate use by the public during school holidays. Open to the surrounding community when students are not present, the building will provide important sport and study facilities for the rapidly developing city around it.

Interiors are not simply staged scenes behind closed doors. At AIM, we believe a good interior can be a catalyst for change. It is rooting itself in the urban fabric, creating life and influencing city culture. The PARK Yanping Road presents this integration of life, local character, and street culture, blurring indoor and outdoor boundaries. Unlike the current trend of centralizing social life around The CBD, the PARK Mall, hidden within a bustling Jing’an city block, brings a new form of a mini department store.  The brand seeks its products broadly, without pretense. It calls to mind a modern-day Wunderkammer, where various objects and artifacts are stored, admired, and celebrated for their eclectic-ness and rarity. 

Situated on the main road to the coast near the west gate of the Aranya community, the 1402 project is a coffee shop built into an existing red brick architecture with a sloping roof. The architectural concept behind the renovation embraces the juxtaposition of the old and the new. The renovation includes two parts: the interior space and the outdoor seating space.

We were deeply involved in the site selection of the first store at the beginning of the design process. After successively rejecting several hot spots under traditional business logic, we finally chose More Than Eat (hereinafter referred to as MTE) which is located at No. 758 Julu Road, Jing ‘an District, Shanghai. The Bund magazine put forward the concept of Jufuchang Block in their 2014 feature, and now this block has become one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in Shanghai. At the same time, MTE was the former glory of the block. It is a catering space that gathers snacks from all over the world. What’s more, its operation mode of “catering +” has become the unique memory of this block. Due to the fast-changing urban renewal in China, although the Jufuchang Block still exists, MTE is aging and it is very important to introduce new content and events to it. Therefore, in the first WAT store located on Julu Road, we plan to use a minimalist spatial narrative to inject great vitality into the tiny volume.

The townhouse is located in the north of Beijing at the foot of a hillside area. The house of 600 sqm is organized in 4 floors, from a B1 partially open to a private garden till the attic on the 3rd floor. The new functional program allows three generations of the family to enjoy both shared spaces and private ones in an open plan configuration.

Traditionally, the archive is used by professional institutions or individuals to record documents and collections mostly for research or cultural dissemination. When people talk about the archive, the most obvious visual sign is the neatly organized shelves of great scale. The designers have taken the relevant visual elements and combined them with architectural theory to create a space that fits the NOME ethos. The retail space is seen as an archive, and the collection has been transformed from a documentary and collecting function to a display of design-inspired goods.