Unit-by-Unit Archive Exhibition Design & Management for Architecture School

XLarch Department of Architecture, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University, Suzhou
2016 – 2017

Architect: Lina Stergiou
Collaborating architect: Evelina Rempi

Surface area: 130 sqm and/in 2.250 sqm.

Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University’s Department of Architecture recently moved into a new building. In its ground floor, a new archive and exhibition space forms with the material library and workshops the entrance to XLarch Department as a place of architectural experimentation.

Located at the entrance level of XLarch, ‘Unit-By-Unit’ is a project for managing, archiving and exhibiting architecture students’ work. Aesthetic concept is an ascetic, austere visual language celebrating the Unit, the archival box that generates central, long steel-cabinets which archive student projects.

These steel cabinets, deriving from the archival unit’s dimensions 44.5cm D x 34cm W x 33cm H, store CDs, A4 and A3 folios of studio work, essays and exam papers. They are surrounded by transparent volumes: glass shelves and exhibition double-glass walls.

The glass shelves store student models. Their depth can accommodate large pieces (80cm – 90cm D) and their height varies for taking in diverse model heights (20cm – 60cm). The spatial organization of both steel cabinets and glass shelves creates a clear, comprehensible order allowing students’ work to be easily archived for a 5-year time frame of RIBA accreditation.

The exterior double-glass walls of the archive space and adjacent workshops, all arranged perimetrically in the Department’s groundfloor, exhibit student models and 3d products. They form XLarch’s exhibition space. The shelves in-between the glass walls are 80cm D and 60cm H.

The project aims at reflecting soberness and method as well as orchestrating a creative experience.