META-Project

META-Project is a contemporary practice operating in the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and interior design. META-Project is interested in what defines the contemporary way of life in the context of increasingly uncontrolled urban conditions, with specific focus on the emergent socio/cultural phenomenon in Asian cities generated by an unprecedented urban transition. At the same time, as a culture platform that spans between architecture and urbanism research, META-Project is actively engaged in worldwide cross-disciplinary collaboration that involve multiple dimensions of the contemporary medium: publication, video, art, network, exhibition, and to develop design strategies for promoting the culture of contemporary city.

 

By understanding the contemporary spaces as production from overlapping layers of social, cultural, economical and everyday-life interrelations, META-Project’s research carefully analyses the spatial reality through a meta-evolutional model that allows discovery of unusual socio/cultural potential. The projects of the office are often fuelled by the outcome of our researches, and aim to establish a new relationship between architecture and its social environment.

 

META-Project believes that facing today’s new challenges, architecture has to evolve from a situation that is obscured by the accumulation of 'things', to a new level of complexity and clarity, in which it is decongested and abstracted, so as to show a new reality where architecture is not just petrified reflection of our society, nor naïve expression of unsustainable utopia, but effective intervention that promoting new value of contemporary life. These actions define what is META-Project.

 

META-Project was founded by Wang Shuo and Zhang Jing in New York City. On the basis of several distinguished projects, it established the Beijing office in 2009, while joining force with its business partner Fu.Before establishing META-Project, all partners worked for internationally renowned offices. After graduating from the Rice University, Wang Shuo worked as architect at Peter Gluck and Partners in New York and Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam, and as Project Architect for OMA’s Beijing office, he worked on the tallest tower in Bangkok - MahaNakhon. Zhang Jing graduated from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) with the distinguished “Award of Excellence”, after which she gained experience at the Hariri & Hariri Architecture in New York, as well as OMA’s Rotterdam and Beijing Offices.