Atelier Deshaus was established by Liu Yichun, Zhuang Shen and Chen Yifeng in 2001 in Shanghai. It involved in many fields including landscape design, architectural and interior design, the preservation and reuse of the ancient architecture and so on. So they will never treat any problems isolatingly. The long time design experience and many professional exhibition communications enable them to have great experience in building houses in China. And they also have acute international view.

domus: Why is your office named Deshaus? What essence of design and persepective dose it reflect?
Zhuang Shen: We got this name when we three parteners had a chat in a coffee bar, but we had decided on the English name much earlier. Actually, Deshaus is a German word, but it definitely doesn’t exist in German. The meaning, defined by us, is “something related to buildings.” However, many Germans always ask if the name is in response to the Bauhaus in Dessau because of its pronunciation. We might name our office in Pinyin directly:”舍“ a primitive world about architecture in Chinese. In Xiaozhuan (a style of Chinese writing), “人” （man) sits on the top of “舍“ and it means “roof”; the bottom “口” means foundation of a building; and in the middle stands a board for inviting customers. It may indicate that the practive should start from the architecture itself so that we keep on focusing on the objects and building in a quiet and independent status. We are interested in the materials, structure, scale, and size as well as the natural elements of light, wind, sound, climate and so on. Five years have passed, and we have begun to experiment with new things, just as the board in “舍“ means something related to houses, such as urban, customs, economics.

domus: In the context of globalization, people pay more attention to the lessons of localization. What is your opinion about this? And how does your practice adjust for it?
Liu Yichun: We could not look at regionalism or localization as simply a sign of the times or something stiff and academic. In globalization, people from different regions may have instinctive reactions, be loyal to their customs since they have shared attitudes. We live in Shanghai, and we are interested in the Southeast area, a much wilder region. Simultaneously, our education in itself is a kind of globalization, which has been digested by each locality. We believe in localization, but we are similarly not against globalization. Especially in Shanghai, a international metropolis with highly developed commerce and expenses, we cannot avoid globalization. However, in practice, globalization has not yet been a premise or restriction on our design. Basically, we don’t answer these questions initiatively through designs, but we can maintain a localized design from different angles. For example, in the Qingpu Private Company Institure project, we try to make a space for local character. And now some of our projects located in older towns are also about cultural protection amidst reconstruction, as well as the challenges of materials and traditional crafts. At one time we avoided commercial projects, but now we find somethin interesting in them.

domus: Deshaus pays more attention to the basic and practical issues of architecture than to adventure and experiment, and you also focus on external space design according to landforms and landscapes. What is the independent process in your office?
Liu Yichun: We begin our projects mostly from the notice of existing environments and expectations to post-constructions. Such as the three classroom buildings at Dongguan Technology Institution: they lie on the highland to the south, so the landform is the key point.
The Xiayu kindergarten and Office building for Qingpu Business Association are located on green in the suburbs, therefore, I focus on how to make them meld to the environment the nearby riverbank and where a highway passes through nearby.
Of course, we also care about the uniqueness of character, local characteristics or building identities through architecture. Our process is still very traditional and evern conservative. During the period of fast change and colossal practice, we have realized our limitations, and it is not easy to make process.

domus: Though the responsibility of architects is to solve the problems in practice, right now many architects are encountering obstacles between realizing their design and a market drive by commerce. Do you have any experience with this?
Chen Yifeng: Our designs will never be isolated or outside reality, and we always try to realize them. Because of our education and work background begor opening our office we thought practically and are interested in practice. During the design process, if an idea is not able to be implemented, we will give up and find another way. For a long time, we didn’t even look at impossible projects. But it seems that was not a good attitude, and perhaps hindered our progress.

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