Banana leaves swing in the courtyard, wintersweet branches stretching out of the house No. 35 Beihaiqiaoqian Street, Yuecheng District, Shaoxing City, a Ming Dynasty Taimen building...A taimen-styled building of the Ming Dynasty has recently become the young architect Pan Hui's first solo exhibition base. This exhibition, with the theme of "A Memory of Space", can be described as a feast of personal style design.

The 33-year-old young man Pan Hui, who received his Bachelor's degree in architecture from Southeast University and Master's degree in architecture from Academy of Architecture of Mendrisio in Switzerland, has been practicing in many first-tier design institutions domestic and abroad. In 2017, he returned to his hometown Shaoxing, and frequently got the opportunity to showcase his architectural design, while also paying attention to the profound humanity and the process of the times in his hometown. Pan Hui often went out to visit. Some old buildings and ruins often resonated with him. "I am most interested in old factories, infrastructures and ruins. The temperament found in those constructions or buildings fits very well with my works." He said.

In recent years, Pan Hui's architectural works have been exhibited in the form of three-dimensional models of wooden structures and flat images. The exhibition also includes 27 images captured during Pan Hui's travels in South America and India, selected from tens of thousands of his photographs. In his words, these records of his travels and thoughts over the past few years have left inspirational notes for his architectural designs.

One typical case is the "tea" theme museum in Huzhou. This work, designed by Pan Hui in the year before last consists of a waterfront tea room and a semi-underground exhibition hall. The cruciform walls stretch in two directions as an "L" shape to combine the water surface outside the room. The tea room is located at the corner of the wall, facing the water and "exposed" to the sunlight, with a sense of "protection". Through the narrow ramp at the end of the tea room, along with the gradually sinking wall, a huge beam is not supporting the ground, but hanging on the roof.

According to Li Jianbo, a distinguished architectural designer in Shaoxing and a fan of Yue culture, Pan Hui has created a new space in the "tea" themed museum using the most basic beams and columns. The narrative center of the tearoom, the focal point of a series of formal spatial order twists, is transformed by this column, which, as the "finishing touch", also gives the space a sublime and chic spirit. "While the current architectural design is increasingly consumerized and image-oriented, Pan Hui is more concerned with the design characteristics of the building itself." Li Jianbo said. Perhaps the word "memory" in the theme of the exhibition refers to this tendency to return to the basics.

Structure, as a spatial vocabulary, is a powerful presence in Pan Hui's works. From the perspective of architectural design professionals, Pan Hui's works convey the poetic charm of structure. For him, the structure is not only a mechanical function to support architecture, but also an expression of order and aesthetic consciousness. The multiplicity of structural space and the fusion of structure and light is another characteristic of Pan Hui's works. These are reflected in his works such as the Maigao Bridge Long Garden Bridge in Nanjing and the Flower Sea Central Restaurant in Chengdu.

In Shaoxing, the "big city of architecture", architecture practitioners and enthusiasts sometimes came by and paid a visit and were surprised by the boldness and subtlety of architectural design. The cold winter streets were given a special atmosphere by the high standard exhibition.

(Edited by Ye Ke, Translated by Bian Bingying)