Weibing Liu · Drawing, writing & inquiry
Drawing, research and
a continuing practice
Weibing Liu began practising architecture in 1988. His drawings and writing record Linpan dwelling culture; his projects and ongoing research explore how places, buildings and resources can continue in use.
From Huaxi Village’s 2009 reconstruction design to building reuse and bamboo prototypes, observation, collaboration and research recur across the work. Circularity offers a way to read these connections through retention, adaptation and shared knowledge.
Explore the workPublished monograph
Homes, landscape and daily life
Liu’s monograph Linpan records the dwelling culture of western Sichuan through writing, painting and photography.
It places homes within a wider setting of trees, bamboo and everyday life. Read alongside his architectural work, this record draws attention to what a place already holds before it is changed.
Drawing as observation
Presented alongside the book and the projects, these drawings bring three related subjects into view: the pattern of a settlement, the life around a home and the landscape of bamboo.
Settlement
Tiled-roof houses, trees, paths and cultivated ground form a shared setting in this Linpan settlement sketch.
In Huaxi Village’s 2009 reconstruction design, Liu worked with residents and local government to retain the diversity of the Linpan settlement pattern.
Huaxi Village · Design 2009Everyday life
In At Ease, a seated figure, chickens and cultivated ground show a home through the life around it.
At Nanxi Yao, a former school was adapted for village activities. The project connects building reuse with the everyday needs of residents.
Bamboo landscape
Bamboo Sea depicts dense bamboo on sloping ground, with a small roofed structure and a distant ridge.
At Ma’s Bamboo Workshop and in Wuxing, bamboo enters construction through collaboration with local craftspeople. Wuxing also explores dismantling, transport and reassembly.
Observation and inquiry
Drawing records how places are inhabited. Architectural projects test ways of retaining and adapting them. Liu’s doctoral research brings a further question to existing buildings: how their energy performance can improve as they continue in use.
Continued use connects these different forms of inquiry.
Ongoing doctoral research
The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction
University College London
Liu’s doctoral research examines how intelligent technologies are applied to improve energy efficiency in existing buildings in Britain and China.
Read alongside the projects’ reuse of existing buildings, this research brings energy performance into the wider question of continued use.
Selected publication
Published alongside Liu’s doctoral work, this conference paper considers a project through its interacting systems.
Using a case study, the paper examines project evaluation through technological, institutional, social and environmental dimensions and the connections between them.
Read alongside the practice, this systems perspective offers a way to consider how people, resources and environmental conditions relate within a project.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-01036-0_123
View publication on SpringerCircularity & continuity
The 2028 Global Award for Sustainable Architecture theme, Architecture Is Circularity, brings attention to places, resources, local knowledge and collaborative processes.
Read through this theme, the drawings, projects and research form a connected body of work. Settlement retention, building reuse, local craft and energy research address different ways that places, resources and knowledge can continue through change.
Read the official 2028 themeLocal knowledge
Linpan and the settlement drawing record relationships between buildings and their wider setting. Huaxi Village addresses settlement continuity; Ma’s Bamboo Workshop brings local craft knowledge into design and construction.
Existing buildings
Building reuse and energy research address different aspects of existing buildings: adapting a former school for community use, and studying the application of energy technologies.
Systems & relationships
The paper studies interconnections within a project. Across the selected work, local materials, shared making and environmental design also invite consideration together.
Liu’s architectural practice began in 1988. Drawing, collaboration and ongoing research offer different ways to ask how places, buildings and knowledge can continue in use.
Circularity across the practiceChengdu, Sichuan, China
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