Jiaxin Li

Shutter installation made of weaved straw is attached on the surface of the facade.

My name is Jiaxin Li, and I am from Henan, China. I have been interested in drawing since I was a child. To me, the sparks created by the contact between pen and paper can stimulate the instinct of thinking, serving as a way to express both emotions and rationality. During my undergraduate studies, I chose to specialize in spatial design. Each designer's journey is unique and irreplicable. I believe that these individual experiences contribute to a designer's potential and help establish methods for design practice. In essence, I perceive myself as a design methodology, responding to the environment.

Education:

BA Environmental Art Design, Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University. 2017-2021

MA Interior Design, Royal Collage of Art, 2022-2023

Awards：

Installation Artwork 'Bamboo City' shortlisted for the 2018 Beijing Design Week.

Graduation design selected for the 2021 Youth Design 100.

Gold prize in the 2021 Academy Cup China Interior and Environmental Design Competition.

Excellence Award in the 2022 National College Student Interior Space Design Competition 'Craftsman Award'.

My work involved building a public community and providing recording rooms for musicians near Bowater37. People will come here to explore straw and create music. This project will happen before the development building plan as a temporary construction existing for one year. At the end of this project, this community will celebrate the site that animals will be invited to eat straw to finish the recycling cycle.

Through this project, I tested the potential of straw when used as acoustic panels to embrace different sound qualities and used as an organic texture of straw to create natural atmosphere. With different ways to control the volumn, three strategies were generated: stacking, weaving, felting. By effectively connecting the straw and other material, I made a series of straw installations with different densities and shapes.

Verse1: Rippling Wheat – This is an installation work in the interior. The straw will vibrate the frequency of the music from the sound boxes attached on the columns. people in this area will feel the natural atmosphere accomplished by the dry and high-quality wheat straw and interactive device on the bottom.

Chorus1: Frames control the volumn – There is a walkway structure connecting the ground and first floor. These industrial frames control the size of different fuction blocks. Meanwhile, the combination of straw and metal creates a balance between organic and industrial, blending the warmth and comfort of natural materials with the functionality and efficiency of modern building techniques.

Verse2: soft the light – The facade installation made of weaved straw and slider structure could change the shape of shadow in the interior. It's like the shadow generated under a tree in the summer that light spot sprinkled in the ground. The amount of window in this structure is quadruple the original window quantity so that can keep a reasonable and flexible movement.

Chorus2: Excess – Vertical installation that connect the exterior, ground and first floor is made of stacking straw bales. Metal frames control its volumn and shape it flat. This huge block is inserted into the site with a 15 degree inclination, forming a enclosed entrance area.

Chorus3 – Through the vertical transport, people will come to the professtional music studio on the first floor which is a technical space compared to the ground which is an open community.

Different weaving language form these different interior effects: gallery boards, light spot shadow, thatch installation.

Material Palette – 1.Nature-inspired: To bring the outdoors inside, materials like straw, wood, cork, etc. Organic atmosphere would be incorporated throughout the space. I would assign sustainable straw to join the site, while the frame structures would be finished with hard wood paneling and metal. 2.Balance: I describe this as a fusion of natural and industrial elements. The combination of straw and metal creates a balance between organic and industrial, blending the warmth and comfort of natural materials with the funct

ground floor

first floor

section

This view shows the format of first floor which is a professional space for recording studio.

north facade

south facade

Jiaxin Li

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Royal College of Art