With Stephan Petermann

Finished: 2014

Yingzao Fashi - Mayor Carpentry section.

Yingzao Fashi (YZFS), by state building supervisor Li Jie, is the oldest complete architecture treatise found in China. Written in 1103 AD – a time, like today, of immense growth in both population and prosperity – the Yingzhao Fashi offers a complete construction system defined by the state for all types of architecture, at all scales: from imperial palaces to curtain rods, and for all subjects from accountancy and construction management, to responsible material use and design.

Together with a group of 18 Chinese students and supported by a number of Chinese experts, AMO (Stephan Peterman and Cédric Van Parys) looked at the text’s central component – the construction of the Chinese roof – and attempted a first translation. Puzzled by the text, we re-prototyped the roof construction using blue foam in two workshops in early 2014 at the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture. The result of that workshop has been on display in the Roof room on the 14th Venice international Architecture Biennale.