信步辑－老外设计师在中国：意大利建筑师Nicola Saladino

信步辑，闲庭信步看世界。gooood的信步辑拥有许多子分类。这里是“老外设计师在中国”子分类。我们将访问来自全球六位不同的老外建筑师，看看他们是如何看待中国，并展现他们的生活与创作图景。第四期为您带来来自 reMIX 临界工作室 的Nicola Saladino。更多关于他：reMIX 临界工作室 on gooood。

Rumble, to take a glance at the world by wandering. Ramble is an album including many sub-albums, and this sub-album is about foreign architects who work in China. We would introduce you six foreign architects come from Asia, Europe or America with their opinions regarding China, as well as their working and daily life here.This sub-album of Rumble, “foreign designers in China”, includes 6 episodes, and here’s the fourth episode: Nicola Saladino from reMIX (reMIX on gooood).

▼ 视频 Video （全文采访见下方文字。视频为4分钟精华版，建议选择蓝光1080p观看。）

Interview
gooood × Nicola Saladino

关于Nicola Saladino
About Nicola Saladino

我是Nicola Saladino，reMIX工作室的三个合伙人之一。我第一次来中国是在2011年，当时我正在伦敦plasma工作室工作，他们在北京成立了新办公室，于是我便趁这个机会来到了北京。一年后，我和陈忱还有Federico一起成立了自己的公司reMIX，到现在已经有五年了，在各种尺度的项目上均有涉足。

I am Nicola Saladino. I am one of the three founders of reMIX studio. I first came to China in 2011. At that time I was working for London-based plasma studio and they offered me the opportunity of joining their new office in Beijing. So I moved here with them, and one year later, Chen, Federico and I we started our own practice. It has been five years since we started reMIX studio and currently we are working on pretty much all scales of projects.

▼2014年的reMIX办公室，reMIX office in 2014

▼现在的reMIX办公室，reMIX office in 2017

在私人生活方面，我和陈忱结婚并且在去年有了一个小女儿，她让我们的生活忙碌而又充满了快乐。

On a personal level, Chen and I are married and we have a small daughter; she has kept us quite busy in the last year and a half in a very positive way.

▼Nico和妻子陈忱以及女儿，陈忱也是reMIX的合伙人之一，Nico and his wife Chen chen with their daughter. Chen chen is also a partner of reMIX

在北京的工作经历和其他地方有何不同？你在这里找到了哪些新的机遇？
Does the working experience in Beijing feel different compared to other places? What are the new opportunities that you have found here?

我来到中国的原因完全出乎我的意料。我研究生在AA做了一个针对于中国的城市设计，当时我有机会到现场调研，并且深深被其城市环境吸引。我们现在将焦点重新从西方国家转移到亚洲，（仿佛）回到了历史上的某一个时期。中国正在经历空前的城市革新运动，速度之快远超欧洲国家。因此能活跃在这样一个进程里，我觉得非常激动。

My move to China came out of a quite unexpected opportunity. I had studied in the AA a master on urban design that focused on China, I was attracted by its urban conditions and I got the great opportunity to come and understand the phenomenon on site. We are now in a historical period in which the global focus is moving from the West towards Asia. China is experiencing an unprecedented transformation at a speed that is completely different from the European standards, so it is very exciting to be inside this transformation and somehow have an active role in it.

▼城市尺度项目 – 东莞#33艺术小镇（点击这里查看更多），city-scale project – #33 Art Distric (click HERE to see more)

我们的事务所专注于城市设计。我对一直对政治非常感兴趣，同时我认为大尺度的规划需要政治干预，对社会活动产生各种影响。我认为中国是研究城市设计动向的绝佳实验基地，同时设计师还可以在这里思考未来城市的居住方式。

Our office is quite focused on urban design. I have always been very interested in politics and I think large-scale design is where we can make a difference in terms of political input, shaping the way social interactions happen. And I think China is the best laboratory to study new tendencies of urban design and to think about how we as designers can shape the future of the urban living.

▼大尺度城市景观项目 – 起伏·连接（点击这里查看更多），large-scale city landscape project – fluXtuation (click HERE to see more)

最后，欧洲和我的祖国意大利一直非常关注城市革新和创新，但由于经济问题，近几年的工作已经停滞不前。我很多朋友和之前的同事都在努力寻找与设计相关的工作机会。但实际上很多人都放弃了这个行业的工作。而我在这里尽管面对巨大的文化差异，以及不太专业的客户和不确定性的市场，但是我的团队工作，每天都让我感到激情满满。现如今，中国的这一代人比上一代享受更好的生活质量，但在意大利我父母这一代比我们这一代有更多的机会。在中国这个乐观的经济环境下，很多人都愿意创业，而且当你与朋友分享你的创业想法时，他们都积极的鼓励你前进，而不是对你的未来持怀疑的态度。这令我感到振奋。

Finally Europe and Italy, my home country, have always been strongly connected to innovation and creativity but perhaps because of their difficult economic conditions, in recent years the situation has been quite stagnating. Many of my friends and former colleagues are struggling to find opportunities in design-related work. And in general there is quite a bit of disillusion and resignation in the creative industry. Here instead I struggle everyday with cultural differences, clients that are not very professional and a market that is often completely unpredictable, but at the same time I feel a lot of positive energy from the people that I interact with in my work. In China most people today live much better than the previous generations – it is not the case back in Italy where my parents had much better opportunities than me. In this climate of shared optimism for the future, one is more prone to become an entrepreneur and whenever you share some new ideas to your friends, they are all positive about it and will push you to think about the next steps, rather than putting you down with skepticism. I find this attitude really refreshing.

▼在中国有更多机会参与设计不同尺度和功能的项目。More opportunities of designing various projects in China.

上海德法学校（点击这里查看更多），Eurocampus (click HERE to see more)

湖州茶博物馆，Huzhou Tea Museum

世界学院（点击这里查看更多），the Global School (click HERE to see more)

相比中国的设计师，你的欧洲背景给予你哪些优势？
What advantages gives your European background compared to domestic designers?

我们做过很多革新的项目，即便有些并不在我们的设计初衷里，甚至还有些意外。欧洲人大概更擅长城市革新项目。亚洲建筑起源于木结构，传统上与建造，拆除和更换周期有关。在这里没有将老建筑改造成新用途的传统。欧洲多采用石头作为设计材料，建筑保存持久且需要不断适应新的变化。如此说来，作为一个欧洲人，我可能更擅长这种建筑形式的更新。

We have done quite a lot of renovation projects, even though that was not our main goal at first and happened quite unexpectedly. Europeans are perhaps more used to urban renovation projects. Asian architecture has been historically connected to wooden structures that are traditionally related to cycles of construction, demolition and replacement. There is no tradition of transforming the buildings into something new, changing their use. Europe is much more about stone architecture; buildings last longer and need to adapt to changes. So in that sense perhaps, being European, I am more used to this type of transformations.

▼reMIX办公室改造（点击这里查看更多），renovation of reMIX office (click HERE to see more)

另一方面，作为一个外国人，我不会想当然地去看待很多事情，这让我能够以正确的角度来评估我们所运营的项目。近几年中国经历了不同阶段的改造过程：首先是短时间内的高速发展，人们被迫接受很多新鲜事物。接着中国想要塑造全新的形象，希望自己不再是一个新兴的国家，而是成为一种国际力量，于是在此时期出现的都是展现进步和现代化的建筑。现在，至少在北京，这种形势已经发生了改变，我们正处于恢复传统价值观的反运动中。在这种不平衡中，很多时候我们很难分辨什么值得，什么不值得，但是我作为一个有文化差距的外国人，能帮助筛选这些信息，让这个进程有更具创造力。

On the other hand, being a foreigner perhaps helps not taking things for granted, having the right critical distance to evaluate the context in which we operate. In recent years China has gone through very different stages of transformation: first came a big rush towards progress, where everything that was new was a-critically accepted just because of its novelty. China wanted to get a new identity – not any more as an emerging country but actually as a global power – so architecture was all about showing progress and modernity. Now it looks like, at least in Beijing, the pendulum has shifted so much that we are experiencing the opposite and we are in the middle of a reactionary campaign about restoration of traditional values. In this lack of balance, many times it is hard to distinguish what is valuable and what is not and maybe the cultural distance of a foreigner helps filter the information and be more creative about the process.

▼北京顺义住宅改造（点击这里查看更多），renovation of Shunyi House (click HERE to see more)

▼北京大栅栏排子38号改造（点击这里查看更多），Paizi 38 installation (click HERE to see more)

你认为中国城市的未来是什么样的？
What do you think of the future of Chinese cities?

中国是一个非常特别的例子，因为中国还在城市化进程当中。可想而知，在未来几年中数千万人还将从乡村迁移到城市中，所以我们将有机会参与到新城市的建设当中，而不必面临欧洲历史建筑改造的各种困难。另一方面，我认为中国城市的规划方式太老了，尤其是功能分区上，这种城市多功能区块规划已经在全球范围内测试，并被人普遍接受，但在最近的传统价值观回归运动中，北京似乎又回到了单一功能街区的规划形式中，人在不同功能区之间的移动导致了很多交通拥堵问题。我并不赞同这种改变，同时我很怀疑这种非黑即白的改变所带来的功效。梯度式的变化更能增加社会的互动性。

China is quite a unique market, because it is still an urbanizing country. Predictably, in the next years, tens of millions of people will still move from the countryside to the urban areas, so we will have the opportunity to plan new cities from scratch and not to deal with the difficult historical heritage that characterizes urban areas in Europe. On the other hand, I think that planning tools here are still too traditional, especially when dealing with functional distributions. Multi-functional blocks have been tested for a long time everywhere in the world and their advantages are clear and universally accepted but in the recent campaign of regression to traditional values, Beijing seems to be going back to mono-functional districts, with big commuting distances between different functional zones which generates traffic jams everywhere. I am not in favor of informality but I have strong doubt about the efficacy of campaigns that work only with black and white distinctions; working with more gradients would enrich the social interactions that happen in the city.

▼东莞#33艺术小镇，多功能城市街区规划（点击这里查看更多），#33 Art District with multifunctional block (click HERE to see more)

除此之外我还非常关注公共空间，尤其是城市绿地的质量。在中国的城市中，公共空间往往是一种装饰空间：公共空间在中国并不是给人使用的，而是供人欣赏的。我认为绿地应该赋予更多基础设施，并在城市生活中承担各种职能。

I would also focus on the quality of the public space and especially the green. In Chinese cities it is often ornamental: it is not meant to be used by the people; it is only meant to be looked at. I think the green should acquire more infrastructural elements and become a proper functional element of the city.

▼东莞#33艺术小镇，绿地承担更多职能（点击这里查看更多），#33 Art District, the green becomes a proper functional element (click HERE to see more)

▼起伏·连接，绿地与城市功能相结合（点击这里查看更多），fluctuation, the green combines with city functions (click HERE to see more)

参数化如何影响未来设计？
How parametric tools will affect the future of design?

我们身处于一个比较复杂的过渡时期。在人工智能和大数据分析传播之后，创意产业还将如何发展我并不清楚。我们一直都生活在大数据之中：不仅仅是城市居民，我们每个人都是数据的提供者，我们所做的一切都是受到监控的。未来有很多种可能性，有一些并不乐观，我们最终可能会生活在巨大的监控系统之下。比较乐观的是，这种革新技术会带来更多可能性，也会让未来更加高效。因此，参数化工具可以总结为两点优势：1，参数化设计是开放式的：你设计的是一个过程，一个动作。当最初的环境发生变化时，你的设计也能适应这种变化。2，电脑绘图工具能捕捉更多对设计师有用的有效信息。这些工具能帮助我们理解这些复杂的系统是如何在现实生活中运作的。

We are in a complicated moment of transition. It is still not very clear to me what the future of the creative industry will be after the introduction of artificial intelligence and the diffusion of big data analysis. Nowadays, we are constantly online: more than citizens, we are actually data providers and almost everything we do is monitored. There are many different scenarios ahead and some are very pessimistic with the possibility that we will end up in a big control system. On the optimistic side, tough, this new technological evolution could open up opportunities to be more effective. In these new conditions parametric tools have two main advantages. 1) Parametric design is open-ended: you design a process, a behavior. The final result is the combination of the values of the parameters that you have set. So if the initial conditions change in time, your design is able to adapt to these changes. 2) Computational tools can grasp much more efficiently the huge amount of information that is available to designers. They can provide us with an incredible tool of analysis to understand how a complex system really works in real life.

▼运用参数化工具对白塔寺地区进行分析和呈现，parametric visualization of the Baitasi district

城市肌理之建筑风貌分析，analysis of buildings preservation in the built fabric

游客路径之商业机遇分析，analysis of commercial potential by tourists’s flow

公共交通之步行距离与时间分析，analysis of working distance and time in public transport

绿化元素之景观网格分析，analysis of green network created by the green spaces

你为什么想要教授参数化课程？
Why did you start teaching parametric workshops?

首先，我并不想称自己为参数化教师：我只是把参数化作为研究设计方法论的一部分。我认为参数化工具归根结底只是一个工具。区分这一点非常重要，因为当我们提到参数化设计时，我们往往提到一些非常特别的案例，而不是在讲参数化设计本身。在我看来，它与形式无关；它更多的是对一个复杂系统的理解，比如城市是由多层次相互作用而成的空间，而这一切都可以通过参数进行设计。

First of all, I would not define myself as a parametric teacher: I would say that I use parametric tools as part of a broader design methodology. I think parametric tools in the end are just tools. It is important to make this distinction because when we hear about parametric design we are usually dragged towards a very specific and limited vision other than what parametric design really is. In my case, it is nothing related to form; it is much more about understanding that a complex system such as a city is always supported by the interaction of many different layers that can be designed through parameters.

▼运河城市，dredging strategy

我鼓励学生合理地思考他们设计的最终成果，并尝试规范化这种类型关系。这样，参数化工具就可以帮助学生把潜伏在他们脑中的设计想法，转化成合理的形式，因为电脑无法执行不清晰的指令。因此对学生来说，充分利用自己所学知识，发挥他们的文化基础和设计技巧也是十分重要的。在开设自己工作室的同时我们就开始了很多学术活动。作为一个小型公司，我们也非常努力想要接很多大项目，所以这些学术活动在一定程度上也推动了我们的研究进程，使我们的工作更加可靠。同时也令我们保持最潮流的设计思考，因为学生总会带来新的设计趋势。

I push students to rationalize what their design goals are and try to build the guidelines that regulate this type of relationships. In this sense parametric tools help students to move from subjective design statements, often originated only from intuition, to a more logical set of rules, because computer are not able to interpret unclear instructions. It is an important moment for students also to learn about what they have inherited in terms of their cultural background and design skills. We started academic activities pretty much as soon as we opened our own office. Being a small office we were struggling to access larger projects, so our academic activity in a way promoted our research agenda and made our work more credible. It also allowed us to keep in touch with new fresh ideas since students always bring in the latest design trends.

▼2017年gooood和reMIX举办的冬季工作坊，课程人气很高，堂堂爆满，winter workshop by gooood and reMIX in 2017, the course is very popular

▼在课程中Nico会不厌其烦地对学生进行指导，Nico would teach the students with great patience

学生在你的工作室中学到最重要的技能是什么？
What is the most important skill that students learn from your workshops?

从第一天开始我就强调过，我们的工作室不仅仅是训练电脑绘图技能。这些电脑绘图工具只是我所教授的方法论的一部分，因此我会更加开心看到学生学会了这个逻辑过程，而不是学会了最新的绘图软件。我一直和我之前的学生，以及在我这里工作过的实习生保持联系，我会很开心的看到，我曾播种给他们的知识，像种子一样在他们那里生根发芽，而这些学到的东西只有当你去实践的时候才体会到。

The one thing that I stress from day one is that our workshop is not just technical training. I am teaching them new tools as part of a methodology so I feel much more satisfied when I see that the students get the logic of the process rather than when they learn the latest technical trick. I always try to keep in touch with my former students and the many interns that passed by our office and it is really gratifying to recognize in their later work the seeds that you have planted before and this can only happen when you really work on their way of thinking the architectural design process.

▼学生作业，work of the students

▼Nico和学生欢快的合影，the happy group photo of Nico and his students

现在，gooood和reMIX举办的2017暑期工作坊8月班正在火热招生中，想要参加的朋友请点击这里查看详细信息。
Now the 2017 gooood + reMIX summer workshop in August is enrolling student. If you are interested, click HERE to have more information.

您有什么业余爱好？
Do you have any hobby?

我热爱运动，我乒乓球打的还可以，但我并没有很多时间做运动。实际上我在北京的生活方式让我的腹部堆积了很多脂肪…这可能也是的另一个爱好：就是我很喜欢做饭（美食）。实际上，我非常希望我的这个兴趣能变成我的另一份职业：我正想要将意大利冰激凌和一些独特的设计结合在一起。这个想法还在初级阶段，但我希望很快能和你们分享。

I love sports and I play tennis on a regular base, but I have not really managed to do as much physical activity as I should. In fact my Beijing lifestyle is actually leaving me with a big belly… Which might also be the result of my interest in food: I like cooking (and eating) a lot. In fact I am trying to make this interest become something more than a hobby: I have just started to work on a new business related to Italian ice-cream and innovative design. I am still at an early stage of the project but I hope that I will soon be able to share with you the first results.

▼Nico每天都要骑车上下班，他的动手能力很强，爱车便是自己焊装完成的，Nico comes to the office by bicycle everyday. He is very good at handcraft and made the bicycle himself.

未来有什么样的规划？
Any plan for the future?

我在中国学到的一点是，在这里任何事情都是无法预知的，所以对我来说，我不做任何远期的规划，把关注点放到近两三年的工作安排中，并享受同时从事各种事情的乐趣。所以总的来说，我的计划就是让我的日常生活尽可能多姿多彩，在所有新的旅程和挑战中都能发挥我的专业特长，做出有创造性的事。

One of the first things that I have learned from my experience in China is that here everything is unpredictable, so I have learned to feel comfortable without any long-term strategy, focusing at most on a two-three years horizon and enjoying the possibility of doing many things at the same time. So in a way my plan is to diversify my activities as much as possible keeping the creative focus that comes from my design background in all the new adventures.

▼享受工作乐趣的Nico，enjoying the pleasure in work