standardarchitecture studio visit

portait of garcia cruz (left) and zhang ke (right) at the standardarchitecture studio in beijing, chinaimage © designboom

on a recent trip to beijing, the designboom team visited the chinese practice standardarchitecture, an emerging design firm producing contemporary projects rooted within their physical and cultural landscapes. founded by zhang ke and also led by fellow principals zhang hong, hou zhenghua and claudia taborda, a group of twenty five individuals work in a collaborative atmosphere housed within a factory compound in the haidian district. the hardworking team prefers tactile methods during the design process, producing a range of hand crafted building and site contextual models for visualization through developing phases.

a former large-scale model currently contrasts the studio’s industrial character, serving to separate the space in half while providing additional pinup wall surfaces and storage areas inside and beneath the construct. an open circulation occurs around the central linear divider, allowing designers to easily move from their workstations to the collaborative meeting areas where a series of rolling partitions may be moved to facilitate brainstorming sessions.

collaborative space containing models including the dancing books tower, wuchang, chinaimage © designboom

covering a wide range of realized structures, their expertise includes a range of planning, architecture, landscape architecture

and product design. they remain focused upon the resolution of urban visions and ideas, typically maintaining connections

between a project’s historical and traditional settings along with an element of intellectual debate.

meeting space image © designboom

workstations with shared collaboration space image © designboom

workstations image © designboom

corridor along full scale model / room divider image © designboom

large scale model serves as room divider with additional pinup space and storage image © designboom

project boards for the namchabawa visitor center and niyang river visitor center see designboom’s original coverage of the niyang river visitor center here.image © designboom

‘niyang river visitor center’ located in linzhi, tibet see designboom’s original coverage here. image © chen su

studio resources image © designboom

process models image © designboom

model of ‘folding house’ in studio see designboom’s original coverage of this project here. image © designboom

‘folding house’, showroom for camerich at the shanghai furniture expo see designboom’s original coverage of this project here. image courtesy standardarchitecture

model detail of dancing books tower, wuchang, china image © designboom

informal studio portrait image © designboom

models stacked against the wall image © designboom

site context models image © designboom

contour model image © designboom

model of studio layout image © designboom

plan view of studio model image © designboom

ceiling consists of exposed rafters image © designboom

view of complex from studio entrance image © designboom