Architectural Preservation

The Vann Molyvann Project is dedicated to documenting and preserving the oeuvre of ‘the man who built Cambodia'

Architect Zhao Yang has an impressive pedigree. He is a graduate of Tsinghua and Harvard, who once collaborated closely with ZAO/standardarchitecture in Beijing and designed a public shelter for a tsunami-battered Japanese fishing community under the guidance of Kazuyo Sejima as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Founded in 2007, his eponymous studio has embedded itself in Dali, Yunnan province, for most of the last decade, developing a portfolio of considered residential and hospitality projects. In Yang's view, ‘China has developed its economy for decades. It has made progress and mistakes. Chinese people have experienced many architectural trends and ideas.' Now, he says, ‘it's time for us to look for an architecture that's honest to our everyday life.'

An exemplary project is Zhu'an Residence in Dali, a home for an artist couple, completed in 2016. According to Yang, the architecture melts into and inspires the everyday life of its owners. ‘It's very close to a Chinese idea about art — a great image has no form,' he explains. In addition to its calm interiors, intended to foreground the residents' furniture and antiques, the building's design carefully responds to its location, in an agricultural area of Chengbei Village. Arranged around a series of courtyards, with outer walls rendered in lime and straw, the residence references the traditional homes of the local Bai minority.

Founded in 2017 and having only recently advanced to opening its own Beijing office space, LUO studio has, under the direction of founder and principal Luo Yujie, quickly built a reputation for its skilled timber work and aptitude for designing engaging community facilities. The firm first attracted international acclaim with the Longfu Life Experience Center (2018), a temporary sales centre for an environmentally focused real estate development in Puyang. Luo's striking forest of modular wooden columns branching upwards within a simple glass box elevates the typically introverted typology of the marketing suite and opens possibilities for subsequent uses.

At a smaller scale, the studio's mobile micro library for children (2019) saw abandoned bikeshare stock clad in beetle wings made of scrap metal, creating a tiny classroom that engages the imagination. Their Natural Library for Zheshui Village (2020), in Shanxi's Taihang Mountains, nestles into the rocks of its riverbank site, using local construction methods that set its thin timber and glass-brick facade above light foundations to economical yet stunning effect. The Natural Library's ethos aligns with previous projects such as a community centre in the village of Yuanheguan in Hubei province, and with Luo's complementary role as director of the Sustainable Village Studio at the Chinese New Rural Planning and Design Institute. Luo says his young practice's plan for 2021 is ‘to do the unexpected, well'.

Images by Jonathan Leijonhufvud, copyright Zhaoyang Architects The serene Zhu’an Residence was designed by Zhao Yang in accordance with his philosophy of architecture that is ‘honest to everyday life’. Here, outer walls of lime and straw encircle a series of poetic courtyards in a design that references traditional homes of the area

Glass, timber and rock combine in LUO studio’s dramatic Natural Library for Zheshui Village in Shanxi province, which was built into the rock face using traditional construction methods

Images by Jin Weiqi