An Uncertain Future for Young Creative Students

Y3.S1 Project (2025)

The location of this is in the Xicheng District of central Beijing, China. It is within walking distance of the Second Ring Road and west of the Forbidden City, the city’s historic centre.

The proposed project provides a surrogate artistic space within the failing envelope of the Fusuijing Building. This project emerges in the context of literary oppression of creativity in the city. This is in response to independent spaces for art being closed such as Arrow Factory and Ai Weiwei’s studio being destroyed. The proposal creates a surrogate environment in an abandoned modernist housing complex that is layered to provide contexts for working, teaching, and exhibiting art. The intended users of this space are young Chinese students. They have enormous cultural and educational pressures, but are seeking spaces for free expression; they sometimes do that by posting their work on a digital platform. The design is influenced by the idea of surrogate space--one that substitutes multiple identities in a day--and reinterprets this idea through spatial choreography of overlapping programs and path. The scheme is influenced by the overlapping geometries of A.D. Neames Walk and the criss-crossing stairs at the Van Nelle Factory to create an active vertical circulation core that connects private studio spaces with public galleries and makes movement a part of the exhibition itself. The goal of the project is to provide an opportunity for connection between our arts community and the larger community to create moments of quiet creating and open exchange in a single envelope.