TIME: 2024
SCALE: 55 sqm
LOCATION: Beijing
STATUS: Built
CLIENT: Tsinghua University School of Architecture
TEAM: Xiong Xing
Cao Hui, Gao Mengru, Wu su
MOTOR: HÖHEN®
The renovation of the motorized classroom in the Tsinghua University School of Architecture is donated by alumni of the class of 2003, and designed by XING DESIGN as alumni representative.
Hosting teaching and design research, the Architecture School Building serves as an experimental ground for design ideas and technologies. The motorized classroom, as one of these experiments, explores software-controlled machinery to create a multifunctional space for teaching, exhibitions, meetings, and studio reviews.
We believe that software-driven automated spaces with robots and mechanical hardware, is one of the directions that architecture can explore and develop in the future.
Review boards and conference tables are integrated into the ceiling. The side ceilings can rotate and lift; when raised, they automatically illuminate as ceiling lights, and when lowered vertically, they serve as pin-up boards. The central tables can hover at different heights. Made of semi-transparent frosted glass, the tabletops can be backlit for tracing. Three sets of machinery are combined to adapt to different scenarios.
This system can be operated via an app interface, allowing direct mode switching or individual control of the elevation positions of the boards and table.
If the purpose is merely for reviews or meetings, lightweight furniture with wheeled drawing board stands would suffice. That’s true.
Unlike other designs, architectural design does not permit failure (not to say there aren’t poorly designed buildings, but rather that the technology used is reliable). Architecture does not entertain the concept of “research and development, trial and error”; each construction must strive for perfection. Hence, we tend to use simpler technologies to solve immediate problems, integrating relatively outdated technological fruits across generations into architecture.
Experimentation is crucial for both design and teaching. Regardless of the technology, it must be refined to be reliable, cost-effective, and convenient to truly be widely applicable, thereby shaping new spatial patterns, similar to elevators in skyscrapers. But before that, Let’s be open and experimental—this is also the wish we’ve placed in our donation.
