Architecture never simply means a subject of design and art to me. It is more like one of the reasons for me to live in the world happily. As the obsessive rumination stimulates me to explore the world, the architecture offers me a clear way to achieve it. During the process of architecture study, such a desire has been gradually converted to the concern about the nature world and became the reason to pursue architecture for my whole life.

Because I was a transfer student from Engineering Mechanics to Architecture, I hadn’t truly started my architecture study until the second year at school. Hence, due to the one-year delay, I had done massive extra readings to bridge my knowledge gap with others. Thanks to that, I had procured many different thoughts about the architecture world. When reading Architecture Concept: Red is not a Color, I knew the relevance of architecture and other subjects; and Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, which demonstrated how three different subjects that research in different ways could pursue the same goal, told me that everything in the world, including architecture, was relevant and ruled by one single principle. But as for what principle it can be, I was not sure. Influenced by Bernard Tschumi, I began to read books of Sergei M. Eisenstein. Using his own films as examples, in Nonindiffernt Nature: Film and Structure of Things Eisenstein demonstrated the relevance of excitement of human being and the great nature. This had aroused my great interest. As human beings born in this natural world, our emotion is affected by natural principle. So are those adjuncts belonging to human lives, like architecture, are affected by natural principle as well? Out of interest of natural principle, taking long-span structure design as an opportunity, I studied many cases and books of bionical architectures. I found that most bionical architectures had mimicked a kind of form in the natural world, like skeletons of insects or shapes of microorganisms. But those forms have mostly violated mechanics logic of their building materials, so the desire of returning the original status of materials, which we call as structural loss, would definitely lead to the high cost and complicated maintenance. By chance, I have read Frei Otto: Complete Works, Lightweight Construction Natural Design. This book exhibits a brand-new process of mechanics exploration. Frei Otto and his team did not deign structures; instead, they designed questions. They utilized the materials’ feature of returning, and recorded the finalized status, which was just the stable state of each material. This has impressed me a lot and verified my previous thinking that nature is not only an environment architecture existing in but also the logic that leads architecture to grow.

The naturality of architecture lies on not only structures and forms, but also the inner philosophy: organic relationships among architecture, human being and the great nature. Even though the architecture itself is inorganic, it exists in an organic environment and will impact on organic items, and only when it procures naturality can it truly be part of the harmonious development of human being and nature. It does not mean architecture should concede for nature but means architecture needs to find a way to create a balance between human beings and the great nature and evolve together with nature. And that will be the first step for us to convert the role of destroyer into a true creator. And that’s what I wish to accomplish. As I believe naturality lies in the philosophy of each building, in the project of Treatment of Mental Illnesses, I decided to rethink about the relationship between nature and human settlement. Because I believe except for mental disorders due to physiological diseases, such as cerebral diseases, mental illness is more relevant to human psychology. And the pathogeny is just human’s isolation from nature: the prevalence of electronic light that prolongs people’s working hours, reverses people’s daily routine and reduces people’s contact with the sun. There are researches showing that sunbathing contributes to the treatment of depression, and its curative effect is even better than medical treatment. Focusing on such a theme about treatment of depression and bipolar disorder, I defined naturality of cure to solve the problem, which means guiding patients to perceive illnesses, make use of it, acknowledge it and finally reconcile it so that patients can coexist with such illnesses happily. And I believe we should apply this strategy to reconstruct living condition of patients as well as normal people in order to block the trend of more and more people being unhappy. I am concerned about the current circumstance of architecture that it has not only occupied vast natural resources and spaces but also isolated people from the natural world. In the world of steel and concrete, the possibility of people being psychologically unhealthy has grown higher and higher. So I do hope by studying architecture to find a direction of architecture’s development that is truly suitable for human and let architecture become the vessel, instead of the consumer of natural resources, that helps nature and human live in harmony.

Architecture education of Rice has taken every aspect into consideration, including theory, history, environment, culture, etc. This is the reason why I am eager to be a student at Rice. In Totalization, I can research on architectural details which I am interested in. My case study of Takaharu Tezuka has shown me how a roof can switch a whole family’s lifestyle, which does impress me a lot. And Thesis would encourage me to perceive the world and nature further, and with the mutual learning with instructors, I can adjust my ideas to avoid being off the track. Studying in Paris, the brand-new cultural environment, would definitely promote my study on regionalization. As one who usually focuses on only one thing, I plan to choose another subject to continue my PhD study after working with a master’s degree for a few years with new perspectives of architectural thinking. Undoubtedly, Rice’s diversified education will lay a solid foundation for my architecture career.