Post A: Each Place Has Its Stream In From All Over The Country

In China they have a proverb, says “each place has its stream in from all over the country”, and design also includes. Design for me is advanced, but successful designs always absorb from the site environment and develop in its own way at the same time. Such as a very well-known café brand – Starbucks.

With more than 18 stunning in-house designable stores around the world, designers driven by Starbucks commitment to the local environmental friendly and also pushing themselves to bring bold and innovative design to customers (Go Chengdu, 2015). For examples, the one at UBPA, shanghai, China, is honored one of the best practical store, which designed by Chinese Original Design Studio.

_c_aguf2sryocihtgjp7yfl3trisarttbsknxyuqaltiqyytrlxndkimnfntwhuodlygoc63ccut4cgbikvehdta4zpsdcs2nca — Bird eye’s view of the Starbucks

The perfect combination of glass and concrete is one of the most standout part (Gooood, 2014). The design concept that they wanted to state is a western culture and eastern culture’s communication. The outside surface used simple glass boxes to deal with the aesthetic fatigue. “The continuous external oblique glass ribs processed the extremely rich shadows around into slices, looking for unification among complication.” While, the very modern surface is against a Chinese style courtyard, which was rounded by a few walls with white pebbles texture. This design adopted the contemporary materials and style but also kept Chinese courtyard culture in the aesthetic concept.

There is no doubt that this store becomes a landmark in Puxi area in shanghai.

This Starbucks store in shanghai absorbed from both foreigner culture and local culture.

Fortunately, this trip to Indonesia, we also had involved in a local anti-smoking program. During this process, we also learned how important is to adjust our design to suit the local condition.

The first time we chose Tarp as our shelter material, but at the end we chose bamboo, which we inspired by local restaurants and housings as our final material. The weather in Yogyakarta is very rainy; therefore the tarp will catch rains and become heavy (Waterson, R. 1990). On the contrary, the bamboo is cheap and dry very quickly, so it’s suit the local hot and humid condition.

All in all, materials that we chose during this process are also limited by the local condition. But at the same time, the inspiration that came from to our design also sourced from the local environment and sharped by the local context.

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