Fenghuo

From Bloom to Harvest

Yang Yu

Bill Pechet     Neal Li    Shirley Shen

This thesis explores the cultural and social relationships between fire and architecture to in(form) emotionally shared communities and multisensory experiences. It examines and even re-evaluates fire as a (re)generative force to create new forms of ceremonies, rituals, remembrances and celebrations. 

Fire used to be the medium of daily rituals and occasional ceremonies in the village of Tian Long, in China. However, the rapid modernization of the country and the future urban planning of the village have pushed out these traditions. This village is a proxy for the general shift of values in our globalized and individualized world. In this project, rituals of producing and harvesting persimmons are introduced to provide an opportunity to reintroduce a number of fire events into the village, exploring the design of a series of spaces and vessels where the beauty and power of the medium can be manifest to celebrate the persimmon lifecycle and reignite local culture.

The project aims to extend the role of the architect beyond the boundaries of space and form into events and ecologies, both natural and societal.