architecture/
Market in a Groove Box
Living and Being, in Parallel and Paradox
Where Love Flows Beyond Death
audiovisual/
Ladder Mid-Autumn
Profile
Shanghai | Academic | 2025
The project explores the intersection of public market culture, ephemeral architecture, and artistic intervention in the context of Asian wet markets. Located in a super-potential suburban zone, the site becomes more than a place of trade—it is a stage for collective rhythm, suitable for both everyday transactions and extraordinary events. Positioned as both a functional food market and a platform for artist residencies, the project reimagines the wet market as a dynamic, sensorially rich urban space. Integrating soundscape design and urban agriculture, it creates a responsive environment where daily transactions, artistic creation, and environmental awareness coexist. Through lightweight and adaptable structures, The Groove Box addresses the transient nature of contemporary urban life while fostering community engagement, cultural exchange, and sustainability. The project investigates how ephemeral architecture can support both practical and poetic functions, embedding artistic rhythms within the pulse of everyday market activity.
Walking through the busy and chaotic wet market, I began to perceive a hidden sense of order beneath the noise. Within the disorder, I found rhythm—a sequence that guided my movement and attention. This was my first impression of the site, where chaos and order coexist in an unexpected harmony. Drawing inspiration from the basic music theory of 4/4 time, the most intuitive rhythm to the human body, I explored how architecture could be composed like music. In a bar of four beats, every step becomes a unit, every sequence a phrase. Like a producer’s sequencer, the market unfolds through steps and loops—repetition generating groove, and groove generating attraction and surprise. The soundscape of the market is a spontaneous symphony: the clang of metal from a fish stall, the rhythm of chopping boards, the murmur of bargaining voices, even a vendor who happens to be a metal-core drummer. Around them, the steel structures, the gridded stall layouts, and the arrangement of fish tanks form a visual rhythm—silent yet musical. The coexistence of extreme regularity and apparent chaos creates what I call a synthetic groove. Translating this auditory experience into architecture, the primary structure acts like a kick drum—strong, short, and decisive. The horizontal circulation spine behaves like a continuous bassline, while stalls resonate with human-made timbres. The aquaculture systems play soft, melodic chords, and the grassy courtyards whisper ambient textures. Here, people come and go. Trucks arrive and depart. Arguments rise and fade. Dogs bark, then disappear. The market breathes, loops, and improvises.