inspiration architecture

The urban dimension of the Amateur Architecture Studio first emerges in 2006 with their reconstruction of Zhongshan Street, a one kilometer stretch within a six-kilometer pre-existing axial street running through the center of downtown Hangzhou. It says everything about Wang Shu’s prestige, even before the award of the much converted Pritzker Prize in 2012, that he was able to insist on a number of absolute conditions before accepting to design this piece of urban renewal. These were: (1) that he be granted a six month study period prior to beginning to work on the overall design, (2) that the inhabitants of the street not be moved for any reason during the restoration (3) that there will be no kitsch replication of pre-existing buildings in relation to the street, and finally (4) that the plan be adhered to for the length of one kilometer. Two particular elements gave a unique character to this wide pedestrian street; in the first instance, the maintenance of a stone bound ornamental water course throughout its length, and, in the second, a large undulating trussed timber roof poised on top of load-bearing, stone walls enclosing the forecourt of a subterranean museum. This roof is, in the main, a masterwork of Lu Wenyu, inasmuch as she has become, over the years, an autodidact master carpenter in tensegrity timber construction. This roof consists of closely packed adjacent timber trusses, which are linked together statically by the thrust and counterthrust of adjacent timber frames