Dingshu Vocational School Of Pottery
Dingshu Vocational School of Pottery
Genarchitects
ARCHITECTS
Genarchitects
AREA
10,000 Sqft - 25,000 Sqft
YEAR
2021
LOCATION
Yixing, Wuxi, China
CATEGORY
Educational › Other , Government + Health › Community Center
Dingshu, a small town of Yixing, with over 2,000 years of pottery-making history, is known as the birthplace of "Yixing teapot" due to its unique zisha (Yixing clay) minerals.
Dingshu is also a national center of Yixing clay pottery making and trading. Local people's life weaves around pottery.
Dingshu Vocational School of Pottery, the only pottery institution in the National Program of Adult Continuing Education Development for peasants, aims to increase the income and improve the lives of neighboring farmers and the disabled by providing courses and training.
The school is also open to the community as a venue for public education and event. Architects prioritized the specific needs in the pottery training process.
After inheriting the genes of traditional pottery workshops and Chinese literati garden, a low-density decentralized campus is designed to provide a free creative environment for trainees and masters.
The main components of the campus are workshops and classrooms. Each function has its featured space, structure, and form, constituting an independent building.
Each building has natural lighting and ventilation, and different types of exterior spaces are formed between them.
The juxtaposed various internal and external spaces are connected in series by semi-outdoor porches, forming a rich overall environment.
With the picturesque landscape and the ambient atmosphere, the campus provokes the changing states of idea exchanges and inspirations for pottery making.
Redbrick and fair-faced concrete are the main materials for this campus. The handmade bricks and rough concrete resonate with daily pottery-making practices.
Pottery lovers, artists, and scholars from all over the country are brought here to share ideas and experiences.
Since its completion in spring 2021, Dingshu Vocational School of Pottery has provided training for 15,000 trainees.
It has become a model for similar schools country-wide due to its high-quality built environment and training level.
