May 03, 2014

NERI & HU ARCHITECTURE - THE DESIGN REPUBLIC COMMUNE SHANGHAI CHINA


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THE DESIGN REPUBLIC COMMUNE SHANGAI DESIGN BY NERI & HU
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THE DESIGN REPUBLIC COMMUNE SHANGAI DESIGN BY NERI & HU
The Design Republic Commune, located in the center of Shanghai, envisions itself as a design hub, a gathering space for designers and design patrons alike to admire, ponder, exchange, learn, and consume. It houses the new flagship store for Design Republic, a modern furniture retailer, alongside a mixture of design-focused retail concepts, including books, fashion, lighting, accessories and flowers. The Commune will also have a design gallery, an event space, a café, a restaurant by Michelin-Starred Chef Jason Atherton, and a one-bedroom Design Republic apartment.
Situated within the historic relic of the Police Headquarters built by the British in the 1910s, the project takes a surgical approach to renovation. First, gently removing the decaying wood and plaster, then carefully restoring the still vibrant red brickwork, while grafting on skin, joints, and organs onto parts that needed reconstruction. And finally with the attachment of a brand new appendage which, like a prosthetic, enables the existing building to perform new functions, the nearly abandoned building begins its life again.
Replacing the rather dilapidated row-shops on the street front, Neri&Hu introduced a modern glassy insertion onto the brick façade. To accentuate the historic nature of the main building, the street level periphery is enveloped by transparent glazing to reveal the existing brickwork and rough concrete structures. Breathing new life into a traditional colonial building plan, Neri&Hu strategically removed certain floor plates, walls, as well as ceiling panels, to allow a renewed experience of the existing building, one that is fitting for the new functions to which the building now needs to respond.
Various small and precise incisions have been made in the interior architecture to reveal the building’s history and integrity while creating experiential intersections for a coherent experience when moving through the building. Contrasting with the exterior which has mostly been left intact due to historic preservation guidelines, the interior has been completely transformed. The starkly modern white rooms are juxtaposed with untouched remnants of brick walls, and in some cases, exposed wood laths underneath crumbling plaster walls. The clear intentionality behind the detailing of connections between the old and the new creates a visually and spatially tectonic balance in relation to the building as a whole.
You may visit to see  Neri & Hu Design Office's project of  The Water House Boutique Hotel at  South Bund from my blog archive to click below link.


























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LYNDON NERI & ROSSANA HU
PHILOSOPHY
‘’ We don’t ask to be eternal beings.
We only ask that things do not lose all their meaning. ‘’
Antoine De Saint Exupery
Founded in 2004 by Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, Neri & Hu Design and Research Office is a multi-disciplinary architectural design practice based in Shanghai, China with additional office in London, UK. Neri & Hu Works internationally providing architecture, interior, master planning, graphic, and product design services. Currently working on projects in many countries. The diversity of the team reinforces a core vision for the practice ; to respond to a global worldview incorparating overlapping design disciplines for a new paradigm in architecture.
Neri & Hu’ s location is purposeful. With Shanghai considered a new global frontier. Neri & Hu in the center of this contemporary chaos. The city’s cultural, urban, and historic contexts function as a point of departure for the architectural explorations involved in every project. Because new sets of contemporary problems relating to buildings now extend beyond traditional architecture, the practice challenges traditional boundaries of architecture to include other complementary disciplines.
Neri & Hu believes strongly in research as a design tool as each project bears its unique set of contextual issues. A critical probing info the specificities of program, site function and history is essential to the creation of rigorous design work. Based on research, Neri & Hu desires to anchor its work on the dynamic interaction of experience, detail, material, form, and light rather than conforming to a formulaic style. The ultimate significance behind each project comes from how the built forms create meaning through their physical representations.
Neri & Hu has been feature dwidely by the press around  the world, including Architectural Review, Wallpaper, Architectural Record, Frame, Mark, Abitare, Area, Diseno Interior, Interior Design, I:D:, Travel+Leisure, Maru, Perspective Magazine, Elle decor, Italia, Elle Decor China, China, Red Dot Year Book, Dezeen.com, Archdaily.com, and countless more print and online media, as well aas TV programs. Neri & HU and their design have been recognized by a number of prestigious international design awards. UK Wallpaper announced the Founding Partners Lyndon Neri and Rossano Hu as 2014 Designer of the year. They were inducted into US Interior Design Hall of Fame in 2013. They were selected as one of the I.D. Magazine I.D. Forty and one of the 40 under 40 prominent designers shaping Hong Kong and Greater China respectively. Neri & Hu’s design has been awarded by Inside Festival, AR House Awards, AR Awards for Emerging Architecture, World Architecture Festival, D & AD Awards, Design Vanguard, Interior Design Magazine Best of Year Awards and Gold Key Awards, Chicago Athanaeum Good Design awards, ID Magazine Annual Design Review, Red Dot Awards, Contract World Awards, The Great Indoors Awards, Design for Asia Awards, Perspective Awards, Taiwan Interior Design Awards, etc.                      
You may read Lyndon Neri & Rossana Hu’s entire biographies to click below links.

http://enthepractice.neriandhu.com/content/rossana-hu