DI: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
JZ : The inspiration getting from the spatial structure of China Palace, create axis layout and relationship of three-pattern. The traditional homing etiquettes and traditional China element are expressed contemporarily.
DI: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
JZ : This project is intended to improve the life quality of residents at the same, use the modern design to introduce and express elements of China traditional culture, in order to improve people’s recognition and degree of attention on China traditional culture.
DI: What are your future plans for this award winning design?
JZ : We would invite new colleagues to see the project regularly and give careful analyses of the pros and cons of the project.
DI: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
JZ : It is around 10 days.
DI: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?
JZ : I decided to pursuit this inspiration due to China needs to regain attention to its own culture at this stage.
DI: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
JZ : Another company produces it.
DI: What made you design this particular type of work?
JZ : The enthusiasm to Oriental culture and Chinese traditional landscape design.
DI: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
JZ : They are my colleagues who worked with me in the same company.
DI: Who is the target customer for his design?
JZ : Sunac real estate, Chongqing/China.
DI: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
JZ : The design difficulties this time lie in both meeting peoples' aesthetic needs and usage needs in life referring to how to express the traditional culture. By reference to the spatial layout method from the Imperial Palace, we constructed nine spaces and grouped them into three steps of the home-returning ceremony.
DI: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
JZ : The name of the project, the Nine-Court Mansion, originated from the practice in China that there are nine rooms at most in a house no matter how large it is.
DI: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?
JZ : AutoCAD, SketchUp & Lumion
DI: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
JZ : This project is intended to improve the life quality of residents at the same, use the modern design to introduce and express elements of China traditional culture, in order to improve people’s recognition and degree of attention on China traditional culture.
DI: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?
JZ : We have technical group in our company who collaborate with this project.
DI: What is the role of technology in this particular design?
JZ : Chinese style and artistic conception are brought into the design, use the ways to carving instead of printing to grasp Chinese "Charm”, change complexity to the simple, adjust in material and simplify in shape elements like Chinese traditional pitched roof and dragon scales, meanwhile shall focus on the design essentials in function.
DI: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?
JZ : In order to more fully get knowledge of background of project, we conduct a questionnaire survey on potential customer group and local residents, get some missions and site memory of this project , and then guide the latter design. Combining the current status of site, we make a deep research on the spatial structure of Chinese traditional residence and look up lots of books. Finally we get inspiration from the spatial structure of China's Forbidden City, create the axis layout, and create relationship of three-pattern, Make contemporary expression on traditional homing etiquette.
DI: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
JZ : Change complexity to the simple, adjust in material and simplify in shape elements like Chinese traditional pitched roof and dragon scales, meanwhile shall focus on the design essentials in function.
DI: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
JZ : We realize this is a high quality project and we hope more people could be interested in Modern Chinese landscape after they visit this project.
DI: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?
JZ : This project furthers my understanding of classic Chinese landscape and through communication with our clients, colleagues and locals, my understanding of design improves a lot.
DI: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
JZ : I hope everyone present could pay more attention to oriental landscape design and provide us with your suggestions. We will keep committing to do our next project better.