Wenmai Lane Commercial Space

Researcher: Dingliang Yang and VARI Design, Founding Partner

Program: Architecture

Wenmai Lane Commercial Space and Xinshan Community Center and Bookstore, whose design focuses on retrofitting and re-articulating the relationship of the existing morphology through the specific intervention of a well-defined architectural typology and form.

According to the overall masterplan, with the support from the county government and the developer –Chengdu Culture & Tourism Developing Group Co., focusesLtd – VARI was in charge of three of the eighteen catalyst and pioneering projects, including the Wenmai Lane Commercial Space and Xinshan Community Center and Bookstore which are the first two projects. Across the design process, a proposition of “morphological perspective” is put forth, which revisits the larger debate between typology and morphology in our projects while acknowledging their dialectical relationship.

We came up with a design scheme in such a specific urban and historical context through the precise insertion of an architectural type and program. The focus of the design is mainly on making an innovative but contextualized architectural form that is created in a highly specific context, which could facilitate a spatial dialogue between the new and old as well as the reinvented versus historical, echoing in a harmonious relationship.