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Pu Miao, right, and his featured project, the Sichang Park Restaurant

The work of University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Architecture Professor Pu Miao is featured in the September 2012 issue of Architectural Review. Miao’s project, the Sichang Park Restaurant, is located in the city of Kunshan, China, and is noted for its mastery of southern Chinese landscape traditions and for cultivating a highly social dining experience.

“For me, it is a great honor to be published by a world-renowned publication such as Architectural Review,” says Miao.

His approach to this particular project is a departure from current Chinese architectural trends toward uniformity. Miao took advantage of the open park setting, incorporating green elements that flow seamlessly from the garden exterior to the dining interior, emphasizing the sharing of public and private spaces.

The building sits in a suburban park with planned vegetable strips, an experiment on urban agriculture. Miao’s design continues these vegetable strips into the building, where they become linear green courts separating dining spaces. “So you get to look at tomatoes while you’re eating tomatoes,” says Miao.

The juxtaposition of indoor and outdoor spaces is one of the main elements in traditional Chinese architecture. By recalling this feature, still loved by local people, Miao’s design tries to place a modern building into its particular cultural context.

Adapted from a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa news release.

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