Construction and Culture

Nanjing, China, 2017

Collaborators: Ting Cao (ETH Zürich), Klaus Zwerger (TU Vienna), Prof. Chen Wei (Southeast University Nanjing)

Construction techniques have long been firmly bound to local knowledge, material, labour, and tradition. This has been fundamentally shattered through manifold processes connected to industrialization and globalization of knowledge and construction concepts and techniques. Construction techniques such as complex and effective connection details are mainly studied culturally, strongly focusing on Western building techniques. However, Chinese timber construction comprises precise and rich craftsmanship that has been around for thousands of years. This two-week workshop studied traditional Western and Chinese timber construction techniques, discussed their transformation through industrial processes, and explored how traditional timber construction concepts could be generalized and transferred for new constructional concepts or potential architectural expression. This was done during a hands-on workshop with experts and extensive field trips to historic sites.

The design task was to develop furniture interventions for the campus that take up and further develop existing spatial situations and social or functional needs. In mixed teams of four consisting of Chinese and Swiss students, prototypes were developed based on scale models and construction mock-ups and finally presented. Back at ETH Zurich, the Swiss students further developed the design concepts in teams of two. The resulting furniture constructions combine craftsmanship, material logic, and constructional design.

This workshop was part of a seminar trip by ETH Zurich.