The Freehand Brushwork Garden
This design-led thesis looks into the historic industrial sites in China and the impact they have on the local residents who are left with nothing but abandoned artefacts. The contradiction of appearance and disappearance of short term industries with its vast spatial shift requires a responsive design intervention. Located in the former industrial site of Tiexi by its abandoned railway, the design explores means to appropriate the sites as industrial gardens and questions whether industrial tourism can be the new typology. The Garden is inspired in its design by the concept of “freehand brushwork”; a traditional Chinese painting technique. It extracts basic principles from the complex traditional Chinese Gardens and re-appropriates them to take over the industrial sites with a new hybrid typology.
