The eroded columns were kept in contrast to the white steel frame of the roof. The elevated floor from the original slanted drainage roof is perforated and covered with removable glasses, in making the original roof surface explicit yet in depth. The fire escape door canopies and the rough ceramic wall are kept to imply the mutation from the abandoned storage space into an introverted architecture office, further to amplify the existing transformation from an exterior roof into an interior space.The steel frame and walls are painted in creating a museum-like white space, as an exhibitive gesture to the remainders.

Unlike a pure delicate white room, the painted walls with the original layer of mosaic and cracked texture give a level of ambiguity upon the completely new walls. The juxtaposition of fading ceramic wall segments with blocking and opening doors and the new white walls creates another level of heterogeneity.The overlaying program of the heavy-industrial elevator mechanical room and the architecture office space attenuates time in creating its narratives. The broken orange roof door retired from its previous function as a guardian.

It is moved thus respected as the interior door of the meeting room, in prolonging the lasting period of architectural elements and its space.The design attempts to create the dialectical effect of architecture professionalism as the program is, and the non-professionalism in architecture. It celebrates multi-signatures over single signature, which also reveals one of the design philosophies of LYCS Architecture. Architects: LYCS ArchitectureLocation: Hangzhou, ChinaProject Year: 2011Project Area: 350 sqmPhotographs: Courtesy of LYCS ArchitecturePartners in Charge: Hao Ruan, Xu Li, Peng Wang