Weekly Improvement : Week 3
In this week's class, I learn about how to write the context of the study. I will confirm the design process and methdologies.
Context of Study
With the development of globalization, intercultural communication is becoming very common. There are more and more western cultures and elements appear in Chinese people’s daily life. Interior design is a part of the culture, traditional Chinese interior design has also suffered a strong impact by western interior design, and now traditional Chinese style is gradually being replaced by the ‘new Chinese’ style. The concept of the ‘new Chinese’ style is based upon traditional Chinese cultural ideas and expressed through modern western design. (Zhang, Y & Xu, R, S. (2021)
The unique design style is a symbol of a country’s culture, but after the 1980s (China’s reform and opening up), many Chinese designers just blindly follow western design styles and they totally ignored Chinese cultural and regional environments. Under this historical background, more and more Chinese young designers and young people think traditional Chinese style has been unable to meet the needs of contemporary interior design. As a result, Chinese culture is becoming more and more absent in contemporary architecture and interior design.
The father of modern Chinese architecture Liang Si Cheng once said: “It is saddening to see a Chinese city completely lose its artistic character in architecture because this fact clearly represents the decline of our culture.” Traditional Chinese style has been passed over 5000 years, it has unique oriental aesthetic in four aspects: namely, emptiness and fullness, dynamic and static, imagery and artistic conception. As Chinese- American architect Leoh Ming Pei remarks, in western culture the window serves no more purpose than to allow light and fresh air into the structure, but to the Chinese, it is a picture frame of sorts, with the garden always positioned outside the window. Compare with the western style, the traditional Chinese style is more the pursuit of spiritual enjoyment.
Methodologies
Surveys
The surveys invited 76 Chinese people from different backgrounds and different jobs so as to discover a preliminary understanding of the Chinese people’s views of traditional Chinese interior design and ‘new Chinese’ style. The survey was targeted to participants aged between 20 and78. Because of the huge age difference, an appreciation of different aesthetics could be captured , so this ensured the accuracy and objectivity of the data.
Interviews
Compared to the participants from the surveys, my interviewees were more professional in the interior design and architecture field. These two professional Chinese interior designers were able to present professional analyses about the characteristics of different interior styles and they also can raise professional suggestions about the development of modern Chinese interior design.
Typological studies
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The purpose of using typological studies as part of my studio practice was also to discover the characteristic of traditional Chinese style and ‘new Chinese’ style. Besides, during the study, I also tried to answer these two questions: “What elements have we got from western interior design?” and “What elements have we lost from traditional Chinese interior design?”
Design Process
In week 4, I am going to summarize the data from surveys.