Tsinghua School of Architecture | Spring 2012
Undergrad Core Studio
Critic: Xiaoxi Cheng
Individual work
A Multi-Disciplinary Institute with Cross-Programming
X-lab, an education platform in Tsinghua University, is wired with a maker culture with cross-disciplinary cooperations. The Lab gathers students from various backgrounds, encourages them collect fresh ideas emerging from campus life, and forge them into start-up success.
This project argues that in workplaces such as X-Lab that call for an insight into daily life, the need to step outside the boundaries set by professionals themselves overweighs internal compactness. To bring up interactions between the workplace and the campus, this project questions the cliche of visual transparency and direct accessibility with a radical programming model. Enclosed research spaces and open public terrains are juxtaposed, forming a sandwich section. Connections between each of the two series of programs are brought in to create intersections, thus lead to moments of encounters.
The Self-Isolation of Makers
Maker culture plays an essential part in X-Lab. Students reach beyond the boundaries of their own professional fields to work together on fresh ideas, hoping to transform them into business success.
But consider the actual atmosphere in Tsinghua University: Instead of nurturing inspirations in the rich content of campus life, the students who are labeled “makers” would rather keep themselves to workshops and studios. This is actually common in many incubators across the world. X-lab must emancipate students from this self-isolation.
To encourage real life interactions between professionals and the public, two sets of programs, one required by the Lab, the other by the public, are mixed and inserted into each other. In the meanwhile, the connections between multiple programs within each group are maintained. The result is a sandwiching program layout with intersecting circulations.
Collecting Events
Massing & Space Development
Section
Circulations
Scenes of Crossover
Sections
Rendering
Plans
Physical Model