2014 Incurriculum Design Work Display
Yaxuan's Studio
 entrance |  2.jpg |  3.jpg |
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 3-1.jpg |  middle square space |  5.jpg |
 6.jpg |  6-1.jpg |  7.jpg |
 8.jpg |  9.jpg |
PROJECT BACKGROUND
The University of Illinois will recognize the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One with a cross-campus initiative start from August 2014. This project participates in this campus-wide event. The First World War Two profoundly change the social, political, technological and economic landscape of the world in myriad ways. This project shows a new concept of landscape and meaning war can radically modifies the residual condition of land, field, water bodies and social infrastructure.
SPLITE & RECOVERY
Landscape and War
PROJECT SITE
The site is contiguous to the Krannert Art Museum on the west end of the “Military Axis”. The Military Axis examined is a rectangle bounded on the west by 4th street and on the east by the McFarland Memorial Bell Tower.
VALUE:
Aesthetic:
For all memories, the war itself does not reflect the bloody and bitter. But when focus on each individual’s painful narrations; we can really feel the weight of the tragedy. When precious life has become the cost of war, people is the first thing should be remembered. When facing the names, the stories, visitors can learn to accept the pain, the reality of death, and then go out of the shadow.
In this project, I designed two parallel routes in the site, one is straight, and one is rough and uneven. They getting close but cannot intersect. The only thing that can connect them is the square space in the middle. The rough route, made of rough rocks, has many ups and downs on its surface; There is no a definite path to go to the center. These strip stones stretch out to both sides. The overall shape is like the crack of earth, spread into every direction. The other side of the route is straight and plan, along the path would be many trees.
The square space in the middle is the most quiet and peaceful area in the site, and the only connection between two paths. When people from different path come closer, they can see but not have touch with each other.
Besides the function of providing space for recreation and communication between different people, this landscape, I hope, use its aesthetic value, like the structure, the path, the trees, and the space it create, to reflect the crucial of the war, the separate of families and friends, and people’s hope for the peace.
Sustainability:
Phenomenon is always dynamic. Nature has its own process; no matter how cruel or hurt the war brings to us, the nature process never stop. All things would change and erode by natural force. The earthwork art would just reflect the change and the process of nature, like a wounded land, a nation or a family would finally recovered from the sorrow.
For this project, sustainability is another important value I want to reflect in my design. Some activities that encourage people to plant some plants, like herbs or shrubs along the striped stones. When time passes by, the plants begin to grow prosperous and finally would cover the edge of the stone. This phenomenon shows the nature process of the landscape, and reflects the recovery of the “crack” of the land.
