Duo Yun Xuan Art Center Coworking Space: back to the origin of Bauhaus

Duo Yun Xuan Art Center Coworking Space : back to the origin of Bauhaus

Located at the waterfront of Huangpu River in Shanghai, adjoining the most popular public space -West Bund Cultural Corridor (WBCC), Duo Yun Xuan Art Center features to create a unique and creative workplace for young creatives from cultural and its related fields.

Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus, the design of Duo Yun Xuan Art Center offers an architectonic experience that evokes both its ethos and its current deviations, instead of translating the Bauhaus aesthetic literally. Thus, color and formation interventions together with geometric abstraction are used in an innovative way to activate the space.
The rehabilitation of the space faced many challenges which undeniably guided each of our design and spatial planning decisions: utilization of the narrow and cramped space due to the irregular form of the building; optimization of the traffic flow to respond to the low penetration of light and flow; integration of artistical working concept; coordination of the relationship between working and artistic activity in the most efficient and economical way.

The concept of "Duo Yun" (in Chinese means a cloud) are deconstructed into abstract curvilinear forms inserted into different levels, which can be perceived as the functional division of each floor and installations for art activities. Three groups of primary colors which are a strong indication of the selected Bauhaus original content, combined with geometric abstraction of the formation interacted with each other, allowing people to participate in the creation of the space.

The related commerce is centralized on the underground floor, so we created a large atrium and a red installation at the periphery of the escalator that connects the two floors, activating the underground space. The red aluminum perforated panel provides a strong contrast against dark black and grey background, creating a strict but playful atmosphere.

We always turn a blind eye to the reality of daily life, but involuntarily follow an unexpected “surprise” in the soul. This little "surprise" stimulates our consciousness and prevents it from languor. A series of volumes are inserted into the common space dynamically and harmoniously, such as elevator hall, public corridor. They are just like a surprise, lending each space its own identity and creating an organic circulation space between them, allowing people to participate in the creation of the space. Beyond Bauhaus, a place created by imagination is no longer an indifferent space dominated by precise regulation and geometric proportion, but a poetic experience promotes variety of informal human encounters and interesting activities.

In order to allow users to have a better experience of work, we also transformed the unremarkable public corridor into a multi-functional leisure space which don’t mind you a typical office. It now can satisfy leisure outside the office, such as reading, exercising, drinking coffee...

After the completion of the Duo Yun Xuan, we took some photographs in the space. Inspired by the "Red Balloon" directed by La Morris in 1956 and the "Red Balloon” by Hou Hsiao-hsien" in 2007, a story of a floating balloon was told in Duo Yun Xuan Art Center. A variety of different expressions of the balloon were given in different spaces, which once again reflects the possibility of re-narrative of an artistic place after the intervention of dynamic process of human activities.


Project Name: CREATER SPACE | Duo Yun Xuan Art Center
Location: No.1188 Tianyaoqiao Load, Xuhui District, Shanghai
Area: CA9000㎡
Year of Design: July, 2019
Year of Completion: July,2020
Design Firm: Yushe Design
Chief designer: Xu Yi, Chen Xiao
Design Team: Pang Yu, Chen Peng, Zhou Xueying, Ji Shuai, Gao Fei
MEP Engineering：Shanghai Chuangjian MEP Design Co.,Ltd
Lighting Design Team: Shanghai ZG Lighting Design Co., Ltd
Consulting Construction Drawing Design: Jianmeng Design Group
Photograph: Yin Ming