Background
Located at the waterfront of Huangpu River in Shanghai, adjoining the most popular republic space -West Bund Cultural Corridor（WBCC）, Duo Yun Xuan Art Center features to create a unique and creative workplace combined with spaces of related commerce and common spaces for art events.
The rehabilitation of the space faced many challenges which undeniably guided each of our design and spatial planning decisions: utilization of the narrow and cramped space due to the irregular form of the building; optimization of the circulation to respond to the low penetration of flow; integration of artistical working concept; coordination of the relationship between working, artistic activity, and commercial space in the most efficient and economical way.
"Design Inspiration"
The launching of Duo Yun Xuan Art Center just coincided with the Bauhaus’s 100th anniversary celebrations. As a salute to modernism pioneers of the Bauhaus, Yushe Design took inspiration from basic forms, primary colors and constructures of Bauhaus, created four distinct common spaces with abstract yet simple design language, corresponding to the spirit of Bauhaus and the purity, universality, and equality of art itself.
People are always being fascinated and stimulated by color. By deconstructing the concept of "Duo Yun" into abstract curvilinear shapes, the function and identity of each floor is defined. The distinctive colors combined with irregular geometrical shapes contrasted with each other, allowing smooth traffic flow into each floor.
The related commerce is centralized on the underground floor, so we created a large atrium and a red installation at the periphery of the escalator that connects the two floors, activating the underground space. The red aluminum perforated panel provides a strong contrast against dark black and grey background, creating a strict but playful ambient.
“When you really understand that each color is changed by a changed environment, you eventually find that you have learned about life as well as about color.” —Josef Albers
We always turn a blind eye to the reality of daily life, but involuntarily follow an unexpected “surprise” in the soul. This little "surprise" stimulates our consciousness and prevents it from languor. A series of volumes are inserted into the common space dynamically and harmoniously, such as elevator hall, public corridor. They are just like a surprise, lending each space its own identity and creating an organic circulation space between them, allowing people to participate in the creation of the space. The space created by imagination is no longer an indifferent space dominated by precise calculations and geometrical thoughts, but a poetic experience.
In order to allow users to have a deeper perception of the concept of artistical working, we also transformed the unremarkable public corridor into a multi-functional leisure space which don’t mind you a typical office. It now can satisfy leisure outside the office, such as reading, exercising, drinking coffee...
2020
2021
a journey of a floating red balloon
After the completion of the Duo Yun Xuan, Chinese independent director and photographer Yin Ming took a short movie and photographs in the space. Inspired by the "Red Balloon" directed by La Morris in 1956 and the "Red Balloon” by Hou Hsiao-hsien" in 2007, Yin Ming told a story in a work place. We were pleasantly surprised to see that in different spaces, the red balloon was given a variety of different expressions, the ambiguous encounter in the elevator hall, the lonely waiting in the lounge, and the intimate conversations of girlfriends hidden in the bathroom..... It once again proves that the artistic space has the possibility of re-narrative after the intervention of human activities.
Afterword
In fact, we have no intention to interpret the Bauhaus as an object of design history, otherwise it is inevitable to fall into a kind of tautology. We hope to put it in practice in contemporary contexts and start a dialogue with practitioners at the time. Standing at a new historical starting point, we can always hear the echoes of a century, the kind of ardent call for the origin of design and construction, like an idealist artist, innovative, open, sincere, facing social issues bravely and critically.
Project Name: CREATER SPACE | Duo Yun Xuan Art Center
Location: No.1188 Tianyaoqiao Load, Xuhui District, Shanghai
Area: CA9000㎡
Year of Design: July, 2019
Year of Completion: July,2020
Design Firm: Yushe Design
Chief designer: Xu Yi, Chen Xiao
Design Team: Pang Yu, Chen Peng, Zhou Xueying, Ji Shuai, Gao Fei
MEP Engineering：Shanghai Chuangjian MEP Design Co.,Ltd
Lighting Design Team: Shanghai ZG Lighting Design Co., Ltd
Consulting Construction Drawing Design: Jianmeng Design Group
Photograph: Yin Ming
