Ziwei (Orange) Cheng

Orange is a RIBA Part II graduate from ADS10 at the Royal College of Art, with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in architecture at Central Saint Martins. She has worked on classical architecture at John Simpson Architects for her Part I placement in the UK.

Many of her projects are communities-related and close to nature, allowing unique groups of the communities to emerge from all over the world. In her projects, she aims to care for the communities, environment as well as project behaviour on an urban scale.

Alongside her studies, she has actively participated in the industry every summer. For instance, she worked as a work experience student at Hok in 2017. She also worked as a summer intern at Aecom Shanghai in 2020.

Orange feels honoured to showcase her final year project at the RCA and she is prepared to broaden her horizons.

THE LAST FISHERMAN ON EARTH

Digang is an old finishing village in the region of Zhejiang, China. Recently the area is facing a changing situation. The lack of labour, the ever-increasing housing prices, the uncertainty of the weather conditions have gradually endangered the transmission of fishing knowledge. In addition to this, the local government is trying to shape the village into a new tourist destination. The ongoing project consists of tourist areas and a series of new affordable housing for fishermen located on the east bank. Tourism is indeed vital, as it contributes to the economy of the village, however it might favour the disappearance of this old knowledge of fishing.

My project intends to respond to this proposal, by accepting the municipality development, but also introduce a new possible life for the community. Through the archetypical form of the bridge, my design suggests an alternative project which consists of a museum of everyday life that allows the community to emerge, while limiting the rapid impact of tourism on the area.

The strategy is a simple linear gesture, a connection between the fish market where they need to deliver, and the fishermen’s housing around the east bank. Eventually, the 30 different families scattered around the land will be moved onto the infrastructure 8m above ground with more shared ownership of communal space. By drawing a new connection to the west bank the infrastructure in the form of a train makes a more strongly bound neighbourhood with an interdependent relationship to the landscape.

Storyboard 1 — The fishing community in the Digang village is the subject of my project. Every day, Mr. Ren would go fishing in the river at 2 AM. Two hours later, people from the city will arrive at the dock on time to collect fish.

Storyboard 2 — Mr. Ren lives in his boathouse. The area of his boathouse is less than 20 square meters. At 4 in the morning, Mr. Pan, the owner of the teahouse, and his staff started to get busy. Because they want to finish all the work before their friends come. This teahouse called Juhua Garden has a history of hundreds of years.

Perspective Section: Digang Fishing Village — The FRAC Gallery by Lacaton & Vassal is populated with the collective ritual of the Digang fishing village such as growing silkworms in mulberry trees, fish ponds and also gathering tea time after work.

At the beginning of our studies, we intended to produce a perspective section combining one chosen precedent related to an archetype which in my case is ''Shed'', and the collective ritual for your project. My precedent the FRAC gallery by Lacaton & Vassal is the renovation project of an existing warehouse. By duplication, the architects have managed to renovate the unused warehouse into a twined volume.

The drawing also indicates a comparison between a generous space and a compact space. The coexistence between a shelter of the landscape and the same volume filled with activities is also implied. This contributes to the initial idea of an architectural form, in which the volume on the one side becomes an infrastructure that rearranges the territory, while the volume on the right is a machine attached.

Proposed Ground Floor Plan

Perspective Section BB — View looking west at the junction between two types of circulations.

On the ground level, the project starts with a new square on the west side and continues in a corridor that runs along the bridge. The corridor allows not only access to the fishermen but also to the public, through a set of ramps and spiral staircases that minimise the footprint of the structure. The upper level starts from a tea house and continues with a range of housing units all the way to the east end.

In the tea house/workshop area, a sequence of activities takes place: hoisting the fishing boat, drinking tea, and enjoying the landscape.

Housing type 1

Perspective Section — View looking west to the collective workshop and living space.

The different types of circulation in the project, ramps, and spiral staircases, are destined for different subjects. The ramp is accessible by the public, while the spiral staircase is reserved mainly for the local fishermen who want to get into their housing units. The path along the corridor enables visitors to enjoy the landscape scenery from different perspectives, allowing them to engage with the local community of fishermen.

Housing type 2 — View looking west at the housing unit and activities.

Perspective section — View looking west at the collective workshop and corridor.

Each housing unit accesses directly the communal corridors, which stages the museum of everyday life. Here people gather to discuss, cook, and work together on a shared platform. For instance, a group of ladies who work with fishing utilities may choose to live together, or a group of single young men can decide to share their living space. People are free to decide whether to add curtains and sliding screens in order to define their own living areas. Families may vary from a nucleus of 3 to 5 people, and up to 4 generations can be housed in these spaces. In the communal corridor, the space between work and life is fully blurred, it is the place where the community comes together and built their sense of belonging in a long uninterrupted strip.

Housing unit AXO

Teahouse/workshop AXO

Through the use of timber and steel, the project intends to borrow from local construction techniques, hence the project is a respectful attempt to integrate with the landscape while giving the chance to the existing community to actively persist in the economy of the village’s everyday life.

View from the tea house workshop looking south

By grouping different housing units together, a larger group of collective living emerges, making the community much more diverse and willing to help each other. The communal space as shared ownership is emphasised by the presence of moving furniture, which blurs the boundary between living and working and creates spaces that can accommodate not only intimate dinners but also collective activities, such as maintenance of the fishing tools during the low season.

The Museum of the Fishing Collective

Nowadays the museums we see are usually built to a specific time frame but here the museum is domestic, present, and permanent. It exposes a sequence of activities with which a specific community engages in its everyday life. By preserving their everyday life and their collective rituals, this project presents an architectural gesture that enhances the identity as well as the influence of Digang village in the surrounding area.

Ziwei (Orange) Cheng

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