In case you feel confused, this is an architecture project based on research which in total took one year. The process was never linear, but the narrative has to be.

For the first six months I studied the essential values of collective housing in post war period, how they prompted to solve housing crisis and how they embraced the collectivism in Europe and China. It turned out that most of them did not maintain the original function as a collective housing for working class. However, the concept of collective living continued to influence urban life. In response, the design approach for renovating the 1952 Workers' New Village in Shenyang, China aimed to demonstrate the potential for reviving this old form for communal living. Minimal intervention and adjustments to thresholds resulted in the creation of a series of spaces ranging from private to public, catering to the demands of the free market and post-urbanization.

Harbin and Changchun, although geographically adjacent to Manchuria, developed different architectural styles and urban forms due to completely different planning and colonization strategies during the colonization process from 1895 to 1945. The study contains an analysis summarizing the historical and cultural context and land treaties. Based on the redrawing of the master plan and historical photographic evidence, several possibilities that could lead to the differences are analyzed to illustrate how the two cities were shaped.