We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Qi Zhou about their original and creative Office design work. Qi Zhou is an award-winning architectural designer, that makes our world a better place with their original office works.
Qi Zhou ("QZ") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work People's Daily Hq Office . Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
QZ : This design is made for the most authoritative media agency in China. The main idea is about how to highlight the unique features of this media. We use organic shape to simulate the Chinese character which represent the corn value of this agency. At the same time, the high recognition body make this skyscraper outstanding in the urban background.
QZ : In this design, we mainly focus on how to do something which will be a creative, contemporary and modern, but also reflect our culture and tradition. We are willing to realize an elegant, modern, poetic and most important a traditional skyscraper.
QZ : We hope this high-rise building can convey our design concept, make it a strong theory, and keep it on all our future design projects.
QZ : This design was a invited competition, we spend 4 moths on the bid. After we won the bid, we spend 1 year to finish the whole architecture design works. During the construction, we finished the interior design and landscape design for another half year.
QZ : We chose to design the skyscraper in this way, because we wanted to make it distinctive from the normal boxing glass buildings surround it.
QZ : We think this idea is unique, only suitable when comes to the context. Any one can use this shape, but it is not represent the best concept in any giving conditions.
QZ : We have our own design logic, and always follow this logic in our projects. It is the inner logic makes us design this building this way.
QZ : Sure there are some great architects and architectures that influence our visions and minds, but those influences are subconscious. In this design, we just follow our own instinct.
QZ : This design is made for an invited competition organized by People's Daily.
QZ : The creatively use of the moral of Chinese character and combining tradition and modern are the biggest different from other concepts.
QZ : The name follows the customer, People's Daily. It means serving for the people.
QZ : We use several software such as Autocad, Rhino, Sketchup, Photoshop and Indesign. We also use Wind tunnel experiment and Earthquake simulation experiment to optimize our design.
QZ : For curved glass curtain wall, we plug glass unit plate with movable joint, which angles between each glass can be adjusted, so that we can fulfill the curtain wall with standard size glass. And we use high strength cables to fix the glazed ceramics. Those cables are not only lighter than steel tubes, but also flexible, which perform well during earthquake.
QZ : We finished this design with lots of skilled designer and engineers, such as Structural engineer, Electrical Engineer, Lighting engineer and Acoustic Engineer.
QZ : In this design, technology is the key element to realize everything. The whole idea is a embryonic form, which needs all kinds of technologies to support. The whole project is a expression of technology.
QZ : We think the analyze of local environment and context is vital for our design. It makes us more clear about what kind of design is suitable for this site.
QZ : Specifically speaking, the creative Challenge are two: How can we fulfill the curved glass curtain wall and How can we cover the outer supporters with glazed ceramics.
QZ : We finish the design and we want more people to know our design and A' Design just provides us a perfect platform.
QZ : We learn a lot of new stuff, because this design is so complex and we need to learn quickly in the whole design process.
QZ : No, Thank you.
