Drawing Architecture Studio

As the second volume of Urban Studies Degree Zero Series, Apartment Blossom is a documentation on various balcony renovations of vernacular apartment buildings in Beijing by a collection of exquisite architectural maquettes. Due to the extreme weather conditions, the balconies in Northern China must be enclosed. But by their eclectic approach to enclose the balconies, the apartment owners have also made those balconies the highlights on the boring façades of the apartment buildings composed by repetitive standard units. The selected balconies in Apartment Blossom are both special and ordinary, which altogether form a brief imagery history of Beijing local balcony enclosure for the past two or three decades.
Apartment Blossom further explores the concept of Degree Zero. Although those balcony maquettes are originated from real life, from the minute when they become maquettes, which is more important, being the subject of a maquette itself or being the object of a representation and documentation, becomes an interesting topic. A variety of maquettes are discussed in the book, from dollhouses treasured by girls to the artist’s concept of “extreme maquettes”, from traditional miniature carving craftsmanship to toys in the vintage shop, providing the readers with a different perspective to appreciate the miniature world of maquette. The book is designed by renowned graphic designer Guang Yu also as a challenge to the concept of Degree Zero in book design. The book is first considered as the carrier of paper, image, text, type area, and binding. The carrier of information comes to the second.

Hutong Mushroom is a collection of models and drawings by the students of Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture from an urban studies project led by Li Han of Drawing Architecture Studio and Professor Jin Qiuye of BUCEA. Various houses created by the local residents from the hutongs of Beijing are made into models and drawings with meticulous and vivid details to show the exceptional creativity of those “non-professional architects”. The project drew inspiration from the Degree Zero concept by Roland Barthes in which he regarded the significance of literature was not to present the world but to present itself as literature. In Hutong Mushroom, architecture is not regarded as an “intervention” into the world (socially or politically) to produce knowledge or space, but as a “myth” the significance of which is to present itself as work about the city (which could be writing, image, video, or model).
Hutong Mushroom is shortlisted in DAM Architectural Book Award 2019 and Beazley Designs of the Year by The Design Museum in London.

Issue #187 of DIVISARE BOOKS collects some of the most powerful urban representations by Chinese architectural office DRAWING ARCHITECTURE STUDIO. The subjects of DAS’ drawings are mainly about the urban space and its relationship with the inhabitants in today’s China, especially in Beijing, as DAS finds that the fast transition nowadays in technology and its consequential influence on politics, economy, and culture makes the reality a much more interesting subject to study.

In A Little Bit of Beijing · Dashilar, the authors continued their exploration for the potential of architectural drawings. With precise lines and flat colorings, plans, elevations, sections, and axonometric projections transformed from 3D models are turned into sophisticated drawings with delicate details in a unique mechanical aesthetic feeling. By adding simple words to the drawings, the authors present 10 interviews in the form of graphic novel. Through these stories, the book showcases the relation among people, architecture, and city not only in terms of space and function, but also of time and emotion. Such a fateful subject of architecture is graphically interpreted as an observation with patience, delicateness, and concentration.

The book is the finest visual presentation about contemporary Beijing. The authors took the architect's approach and depicted 3 most interesting and trendy places in Beijing, San Li Tun, 798, and Nan Luo Gu Xiang by the use of computer software. The book includes 3 volumes as one for each of the places, 1 small booklet Fiction, and 3 axonometric posters.