Architecture Of Vitality Research On Huang Shengyuan's Architectural Practice In Yilan

Huang Shengyuan is one of the most influential phenomena in mainland China in recent years. He was born in Taipei, studied and worked in the US, came back to Yilan, Taiwan and founded The Fieldoffice in 1994. His projects are deeply rooted in local environment of natural beauty, loose city fabrics and peaceful life. This thesis attempts to discuss the following topics:1. The uniqueness and values of Huang's architecture.2. The factors contributing to the uniqueness.3. The inspirations that these factors may bring about to the architects of mainland China.To discuss these topics in depth, this paper analyzes them from two angles, the field of architecture and the field of sociology. As far as I'm concerned, the most valuable feature of Huang's architecture is vitality. And the essence of this vitality is humanism, which presents itself in three aspects of architectural design, the inclusiveness and freedom of life, the vitality of the dimensions of space and the vitality of the dimensions of time.The paper further analyzes this phenomenon from three aspects, the personal background of Huang Shengyuan, the organization of Fieldoffice and the environment of Yilan. From the study, it is evident that the organization of Fieldoffice is not like that of traditional comme rcial architectural groups, or artist studios. Fieldoffice plays the role of a non-profit community organization in the Yilan community. The focus of Huang's concern is not architectural design itself, but the creation of space, which contributes to the re-organization of social relationship within the community. In other words, Huang goes beyond the organization of traditional architects into a higher field. It is precisely such organization, which is aimed for public benefits, that gives Fieldoffice its p ublic credentials, and brings about the maximum freedom to its designs.The pursuit of freedom and the repulsion of authority pressure have made Huang choose this special organization. The long existing independent and autonomy characteristics of Yilan and the democracy of local government are other factors.The paper further compares the vitality of Huang 's design and the anti-vitality of common architecture, through design process, inner mechanism and outer environment, analyzes its uniqueness and referen ce values, and finally discussing the possible duplicate of such phenomenon in mainland China and future prospects.