The topic of my thesis at Harbin Institute of Technology was about the residential communities, mainly concentrated in the southwest of China, which are known in China as “settlements.” These settlements are unique in that the minority residents carry out their own renovations to their housing to adapt to their daily life. This practice and process has led to a complex and intricate relationship of spaces, which are the origin of a regional concept of architecture in rural China.
In my study of architecture of other countries, I have found an abstract interpretation of the relationship of daily life and space in the innovative contemporary architecture of the Netherlands that I find to be similar to the complex geometries found in the architecture of the “settlements” in Southwest China.
The purpose of my travel and research was to conduct an extensive survey of the innovative architecture of the Netherlands and to observe and map the characteristics of the architecture for comparison with the regional architecture of southwest China.
My final report explores the characteristics of Dutch architecture from four aspects: the built environment, the building itself, the use of architecture, and the history of architecture. Dutch structuralism of the 1960s has always been of interest to me because of my initial obsession with its form. Renowned Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck’s architectural model has always been a model I have tried to crack, which combines original meanings with modern architectural forms. As a result, his buildings have a charming fuzzy character.
