8. Interior Urbanism
Liuyang Zhang
Liuyang ZHANG is a London/Shanghai based space designer obessed in exploring spatial integration design, including city ,architecture, landscape and interior design.
EDUCATION
● Flying Club in Changjia Mountain in Wuhan (Architecture and Interior Design, Under Construction)
● Assisting design of Cherry Blossom Garden located in Hankou River Beach in Wuhan (Landscape Design)
From huge urban scale to tiny interior scale, I’m obsessed in exploring ways of using narrative architectural languages to build communication and interaction between human and space. Driven by this, I love to design immersive visitor experiences more than simply spaces and I have applied these thoughts in my design of cultural buildings such as museums, art gallery, tea house, and commercial buildings such as showroom, bontique etc.
The Touching Journey — The story starts from the touching journey of British Museum. It is the first time I recorded my personal journey through London using my sense of touch.
Research of the Surface of Trafalgar Square
The touching map of trafalgar square 1:200 — This map records the surface of different accessible materials in Trafalgar Square with clay. When placing the 1:1 surface copy into this 1:200 map, all the textures of surface are magnified, guilding people to focus on their tactile, the small fluctuation of textures would be noticed.
Material Touching Sample of Trafalgar Square — The outdoor texture of Trafalgar Square appears to be more rough and irregular, while the interior texture of my home appears to be more delicate and decorative with perfect pattern.
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My project responds to the increasing density of population in our cities. As land is used more intensively, space for citizens is being squeezed and the boundaries between public and private space blurred. My approach reverses the usual way of planning public space, moving from the macro- to the micro-scale. Instead of planning from afar, I recorded my personal journey through London using my sense of touch, making rubbings and casts of the surfaces of private and public spaces. This helped me to understand the intimate relationship between people and public space. My research shows that surfaces and materials tend to be imperfect: rough textures and random patterns that are constantly changed by visitors. Through this close-up study I realized that public participation is key for the public realm and that my design should designed to be constantly changing to encourage public participation.
Medium:
Clay, Seed, ConcreteSize:
Trafalgar Square
The Gathering Point Map — I found some undesigned casual spaces are actually taken important roles of people’s public activities.
City of London
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Concept Model: The Folding City
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Circulation space makes public realm!
In the second term I applied my approach to a study of 22 Bishopsgate, the tallest new office building in the City of London which has been named a ‘vertical village’ by the developer. My aim was to design public spaces in the tower that would respond to the criteria for truly public space that I developed in the first term. As research I made drawings of people using the streets, alleys and parks around the site. I found that the undesigned public spaces are much more intensively used. For example a doorway or alcove makes a good shelter for social chatting; a corner hidden in an alley creates a great atmosphere for drinking and chatting. No matter how public space is designed, people find the most suitable places for gathering. I came to the conclusion that circulation spaces within the tower would make the most important public and social spaces, maintaining the vitality of the city.