The Architects’ Journal Architecture News & Buildings
In this episode, we explore the global phenomenon of shrinking villages in the countryside, hearing about a remarkable series of interventions in villages and quarries in south-eastern China by DnA_Design, a small Beijing practice. Xu’s work relates directly to the VeloCity project which we heard about in episode 14.
Xu advocates a role change for architects – they should no longer accept a commission as given, but take initiative and evaluate a project’s regional context to make a proposal that is unique and rooted in its place.
Climate Champions host Hattie Hartman recently met Xu at the presentation of the Obel Award, for which she is a jury member, and was immediately taken with her sensitive and impactful work. In less than a decade, Xu and her team have built more than 20 projects that vary widely in programme and materiality: a tofu factory, a museum, performance spaces and a brown sugar factory. These projects have attracted new residents back to formerly dilapidated villages by creating jobs and a sense of purpose in these forgotten places.
Xu’s approach is to tease out the DNA of a place. Every village has its own story and its own materials which determine what should be built and how. The programme and materiality emerge out of conversations with local people to understand the social, economic and built heritage of a place.
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About Xu Tiantian
Xu Tiantian is the founding principal of DNA_Design and Architecture in Beijing and a member of the Obel Award jury, which she joined in 2019.
Tiantian received her MA in urban design from Harvard GSD and her Bachelor of Architecture from Tsingua University. After working for three years in Boston and briefly in the Netherlands at OMA, she founded her Beijing studio in 2004. Xu Tiantian has received numerous awards, including the Moira Gimmel Prize for Emerging Architecture in 2019. She is currently teaching a studio at Yale School of Architecture, where her students are applying her revitalisation approach to a village in Germany.
Projects and resources mentioned in this episode
Xu’s Yale studio: Reinventing Referinghausen
Brown Sugar Factory (2016)
Hakka Indenture Museum (2017)
Tofu Factory (2018)
Rural Moves: The Songyang Story (exhibition + catalogue, Aedes 2018)
Jinyun Quarries: The Quarry as Stage (exhibition + catalogue, Aedes 2022)
Credits
Climate Champions is produced in association with ACAN, the Architects’ Climate Action Network
Podcast produced and edited by Simon Aldous
Music: Edmilson do Pífano, Forró de dois Amigos. Interpretation: Felipe Tanaka e banda Balaio de Baião