Yao Zhang
About
Yao Zhang is a designer and practitioner with interdisciplinary interests. Since graduating from the University of Nottingham, he has shifted his focus on the architectural environment towards politics. He is passionate about using various media and approaches to conduct research and practice on related issues.
The project he proposed in collaboration with Enyang Zhuo and Yiqing Yang explores the political engagement of architecture in the colonial/anti-colonial context. This project proposes a dynamic architecture closely linked to memorial movements and political activities, supporting Palestinian refugee camps and refugees in their protest and resistance against occupation and colonization. The design emphasizes the growth of the architecture driven by user activities, achieving an interplay between the development of decentralized architectural forms and the associated memorial movements through a series of design strategies. The memorial movement is archived by the proposed space based on the architecturally expressed tatreez, transforming the displacement of the refugee collective into an architectural symbol that reshapes the space of the refugee camp, forming a tangible indictment of the enforced displacement due to occupation and colonization at an urban scale. This architecture attempts to reassess the existence of the refugee camp, noting that, “it merely floats on this land while its roots connect to the residents’ homeland.”
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