The Patch House & The Sample House
Drawing Architecture Studio (DAS) created two works for Art Field Nanhai 2024: The Patch House and The Sample House. These pieces reconstruct the dynamics of construction sites to explore the relationships between drawing and building, unfinished and finished states, and standardization and deviation.
The Patch House draws inspiration from an unfinished wall inside the Youwei Pavilion in the Xiqiao Town of Nanhai, the site of the project. The exposed beams, columns, and stair structures on the wall resemble an unfinished sectional drawing, awaiting completion.
Using local village houses as a reference, DAS constructed a complex sectional drawing on the wall, envisioning a vertical village that could accommodate dozens of households. Materials like waterproof membranes, insulation panels, and bamboo plywood were used to recreate abstract representations of real residential spaces, including elements such as windows, furniture, and shrines. These construction materials reveal the envisioned uses of the spaces upon completion.
Viewed from the side, the installation resembles a chaotic stack of construction materials; from the front, it presents a blurred yet complete image of a dwelling. By using materials that symbolize “unfinished,” The Patch House builds an imagined world of completion.
Inspired by The Patch House’s exploration of the “unfinished,” The Sample House is an outdoor installation located on the large staircase behind the wall of the Youwei Pavilion. It reflects on the temporary structures often found on construction sites—such as worker dormitories, guard posts, and performance mockups—that disappear upon project completion.
Constructed from inexpensive embossed metal panels—ready-made, standardized products of mass production—and strictly following standard installation processes, the work’s façade is richly ornamented, borrowing patterns from local residential tilework. With a tilted structure perpendicular to the sloped staircase, the installation resembles a sample house for showcasing embossed panels, seemingly forgotten here during a site clearance. In its temporary, economical, and visually expressive state, it challenges the standardized urban construction symbolized by the surrounding grand new buildings.
During construction, the minimum order quantity for the embossed metal panels far exceeded the project’s needs. DAS repurposed the surplus material to enhance The Patch House by adding a “elevation drawing” layer on top of the “sectional drawing”. This additional layer, composed of light steel framing and embossed panels, abstracts and fragments elements of Nanhai’s residential façades, such as balconies, canopies, and porches. The interplay between elevation and sectional drawings not only responds to The Sample House next door but also gives The Patch House greater dimensionality. A ladder, also made of the same materials, was added to invite visitors to step “inside” the house.
The Patch House celebrates the allure of the unfinished by rediscovering the construction site, while The Sample House commemorates the lost temporary structures, questioning how standardized construction limits architectural diversity.
