New Pastoralism Lecture Hall

The bamboo resembles a virtuous person—how so? The bamboo root is firm; firmness establishes virtue. When a gentleman sees its root, he thinks of those who build well and stand unshakable.—Bai Juyi, Essay on Growing Bamboo. Since ancient times, Chinese literati have had a special affection for bamboo, often using it as a metaphor for the gentleman and frequently incorporating it into courtyard landscapes, gradually sedimenting a unique material culture. The Yangshan Pastoral Lecture Hall in Wuxi is a design work that uses bamboo as its primary building material. The project is located in Yangshan Town, Wuxi, on the southern shore of Taihu Lake. Wuxi Yangshan Pastoral East is China's first pastoral complex project, located in Yangshan Town, the hometown of Chinese honey peaches on the outskirts of Wuxi. As the landmark building within the complex, the Pastoral Lecture Hall stands at the center of the campus, merging with the pastoral landscape and continuously growing within it. The building covers 1,618 square meters and consists of an indoor meeting hall, an outdoor leisure area, and extended green landscape. The site was originally a bamboo grove. Architect Zou Yingxi respected the site's base, hoping to establish a dialogue between the lecture hall and its surroundings through original ecological materials, and to express and deepen the building's defining identity as a place where the pastoral manifesto is voiced. The overall building has an irregular triangular form, and the massing unfolds in perspective so that the lecture hall possesses a semi-open gray space that blends indoor and outdoor rather than a closed box.