Interview with Yuting Zhang

The projects have a great driving force from the public realm and how people experience the space. And projects that rise from their own urban and cultural context.

Be patient and believe in yourself. Being an architect is a lifelong journey and you will always find something you don’t know along the path, and you have to learn every day to grow.

Great balance on practical aspects, vision, functions, creativity, and budget.

User’s experience through place-making and the design narrative and story telling.

David Chipperfield is one of my favorite architects. His renovation of Friedrich August Stueler’s Neues Museum is really inspiring. Rather than restoring the museum to its previous condition or building an incongruous modern addition, Chipperfield stitched together the extant architectural fragments with simplified concrete interpretations of the missing forms. He crafted a unique response to every space, restoring what could be preserved, infilling as necessary, and thoughtfully integrating contemporary building systems. The quiet interventions restore the museum’s massing and spatial sensibility to capture the beauty of the original structure without replicating what was lost or fetishizing the ruins that remain. This is a thoughtful approach I have implemented into my own projects.

Design is everything. As a designer, I have the benefit of not only designing for the great public but also designing my own way of living.

Creativity, initiation, empathy, and coordination

Less is more.

I was born in the old city of Beijing, my dad was an architect and my mom was a professor in the field of industrial design. So it’s kind of natural to me to want to be a designer. I was really curious and fell in love with painting from my earliest childhood. I also like literature, history, culture, and science. Being an architect is a great career to have all my interests combined through placemaking.

I started Studio Re+N in 2022 with my friend Shimin Cao whom I met during my time at Harvard GSD. Studio Re+N is a multi-disciplinary studio based in Boston and Texas and is deeply engaged with local issues of public space, history, identity, and place-making. Our work combined formal exploration, experimental collaborative methods, and applied research in architecture, urban, and landscape. Re+N is a combination of Reinterpretation, Reenvision, Reengage, and embracing endless opportunities. Our design focuses on formulating spatial strategy from the urban environment and its ever-changing conditions, delivering a unique identity while reinterpreting the existing urban and rural fabric, respecting the historical and cultural context with sensitivity, and specifying distinct human experiences.

Design is everything. As a designer, I have the benefit of not only designing for the great public, but also designing my own way of living.

The projects have a great driving force from the public realm and how people experience the space. And projects that rise from their own urban and cultural context.

David Chipperfield is one of my favorite architects. His renovation of Friedrich August Stueler’s Neues Museum is really inspiring. Rather than restoring the museum to its previous condition or building an incongruous modern addition, Chipperfield stitched together the extant architectural fragments with simplified concrete interpretations of the missing forms. He crafted a unique response to every space, restoring what could be preserved, infilling as necessary, and thoughtfully integrating contemporary building systems. The quiet interventions restore the museum’s massing and spatial sensibility to capture the beauty of the original structure without replicating what was lost or fetishizing the ruins that remain. This is a thoughtful approach I have implemented into my own projects.

Brick, Wood, Glass, Steel, Stone

User’s experience through place-making and the design narrative and storytelling.

There’re ups and downs in the whole design process, the excitement when some of the design ideas come with a great spacial experience and the frustration when some of the design concepts can not be carried out due to technical aspects.

My biggest pleasure as an architect is to see the design got realized, and people are happily exploring the place.

Great balance on practical aspect, vision, functions, creativity and budget.

I grew up in a courtyard house in the old city of Beijing. This has a great impact on my practice and ideology as a designer, and the reason my design focuses on the dialogue between old and new, and the reinterpretation of the existing context and culture.

Be patient and believe in yourself. Being an architect is a lifelong journey and you will always find something you don’t know along the path, and you have to learn every day to grow.

Less is more with strong storytelling.

Creativity, initiation, empathy, and coordination

Continue practicing as an architect and urban designer, expand the studio and get involved in more community and social aspects.

I'm working on a coffee shop design in Iceland.

zhyuting68@gmail.com