Green shoots
- Source: Global Times
- [21:44 March 29 2011]
- Comments
Bamboo Plan, a part of new exhibition "Uni-design" in BCA.
by Wu Ziru
The main exhibition hall at the Beijing Center for the Arts (BCA) seems designed to show fashionable and trendy art pieces make of what you will, therefore, one of their latest exhibits, Bamboo Plan: a small cottage that, at first glance, looks more like something our ancestors would live in than a piece of "modern" design.
It is all part of a new exhibition, dubbed "Uni-design," currently being held at BCA to "transcend the boundaries of the design field and a collaborative effort to break through the bottleneck of the [design] industry," according to publicity materials.
Together with other pieces by first-class Chinese architects and artists such as Zhang Yonghe, Zhou Wei and Shao Fan, Bamboo Plan, by Taiwanese designer Jeff Shi, will be showcased until April 15.
Overlooking the ground floor of BCA, the basement hall's Bamboo Plan is utterly exposed to the viewer. With slender bamboo surrounding the body, the hut looks naturally hidden in clusters of grass.
"The bamboo grass clusters' is something that suddenly came into my mind when building the hut," explained Shi, saying that the result makes his hut seems more like it's ancient.
Standing in front of his project and carefully observing the audience response, Shi seems both satisfied and anxious, looking forward to answering questions at length about the "strange" exterior of his design.
For those who initially see Bamboo Plan as a throwback to more rudimentary times, simply entering reveals Shi's intentions (and skills at disguise). The lifestyle it offers is simple and tasteful while also being modern and innovative. Soft LED lights within the wall illuminate the inside at night, while in some parts the bamboo is cut thin enough to allow sunlight to permeate, meaning that by day the interior is bright with natural light while when night falls, the LEDS grow brighter as it gets darker outside.
Shi explains that he was firstly invited to perform a design for a LED light brand, but ended up using the energy-saving lights for a new architecture project. "Saving electricity is a crucial step in forging a green lifestyle, and the use of light is especially crucial in saving energy," Shi observed.
Like many other architects of today, Shi is turning to tradition for inspiration, trying to find a way to incorporate both a convenient contemporary lifestyle and an uncomplicated use of sustainable materials from past times.
"You cannot simply make people go back thousands of years ago to save energy," Shi explained. "What architects do is to provide a possible better way to advance people's living conditions."
The use of traditional but versatile materials such as bamboo is the fruit of such explorations. In an interview, Shi told the Global Times that using bamboo to build is inspired from traditional Taiwanese village housing.
In Taiwan and many other parts of South China, bamboo grows everywhere, Shi said. It used to be the sole material, in fact, for construction in many areas, but is now often discarded as concrete blocks and steel bars have become the norm both in cities and rural areas.
All bamboos used in the project came from Lanxi, Zhejiang Province, an area famous for bamboo for thousands of years, with many famous poems sung throughout history about Lanxi's bamboo.
"I hope more people will think about the problem of [building] materials," Shi said. "When turning to tradition, we might find the solution."
Inside the hut, other attractions include several pieces of handcrafted bamboo furniture and other handicrafts articles, made by Taiwanese craftsmen, meticulously arranged. These exquisite articles, echo Shi's concept: efficient and nature-friendly. Shi hopes to get people thinking more about the possibility of bamboo's use in modern life, with everyday items like tables and chairs.
How difficult could such concept work be turned into reality? Shi said that it's never a problem in the end, although architects, like artists, live ahead of their times.
"The day will come, no matter how long it takes," he predicted.
