This week, I just realized some assumption about the project made in last week. The more content I expanded, the more interesting potentials I found in the process. City in a chair was an example.

Until now, I have a general outline about the project. From city to district, to building, to furniture, to inside city, to district....... It could be an endless circle. When it comes to the inside city, the city style could be totally different from the formers. Nothing is impossible.

After the map of a city within a city

Last week, after tutorial, I thought about how to make my own map of Beijing city to give a comprehensive background for my project. Then I made some attempt.
Step 1: using 16 pieces of A4 paper to piece together a big Beijing map (maybe not big enough, anyway, it was just an attempt).
Step 2: piecing together other 4 pieces of paper to make up the Third Ring Road, which is the main structure of Beijing.
Step 3: outlining The Forbidden City in more clear view (because the former 2 steps use a little vague photocopies).
Step 4: figuring out the position I wish to put my project to in The Forbidden City.
After that, my project starts~
I wish to choose the most spectacular building, The Hall of Supreme Harmony as my site. Then going through the main door to the inside space, there will be another delicate palace which is created from my imagination. In this palace, going through another door, you can see some furniture and inside one of the chairs (because the Chinese classical chairs have hollow inside space), there will be another small city map. Also this city is a typical Chinese imperial city and designed from the same regulation and pattern as The Forbidden City. 

Self-similar pattern when ink dissolves in water

The Forbidden City

The forbidden City, the imperial palace complex of the last two dynasties of China, lies at the center of present-day Beijing. it was from here that fourteen Ming and ten Qing dynasty emperors issued edicts and ruled China for 491 years.
The theory of yin and yang have a long continuous history in Chinese civilization. It says yin and yang is the way of heaven and earth, meaning that everything can be divided into the two mutually opposite and independent elements of yin and yang. For example, the pair of above and below, front and back, odd and even, positive and negative, are all the embodiments of this theory.
The architectural design of Forbidden City directly reflects the principles of yin and yang. Of the two sector of the Forbidden City, the Outer Court signifies yang while the Inner Court embodies yin. This belong so, odd numbers dominate the design of Outer Court and even numbers prevail in the Inner Court.

further interests about fractal geometry

In the self-similar world, the smaller part is the reduced-size copy of the whole. It is known that fractal geometry and fractal architecture has many applications in the western art and architecture, from the pattern to structure, from facade to plans. But actually, in the east countries, you can find the very close relationship between fractal theory and Chinese imperial urban and building designs. Although these designs have already existed for a long time, the essence of the designing method surprisingly approach the fractal geometry. I think it is very interesting to make a bridge from western architecture theory to Chinese classical architecture styles. 
In addition, this pattern, obviously, could allow the space more interesting and have more possibility. In other words, the larger space could be considered as the container of the smaller one. From a broader perspective, this relationship could create a mysterious organized pattern. And behind this pattern, there may be some other metaphor and symbol that relate the cultural background of the city and palace. For example, the most famous pattern for urban design in ancient china was nine grids, which possessed the features of symmetry and self-similarity. As far as I know, it came from a Chinese scientist’s research about the universe and space in ancient china. With the functional and aesthetic value, this form gradually became the main architecture pattern in the design of imperial city and palace.

A collection with a collection

It is a story about collection.

when I made the collection about leaves, I did not have a very clear idea about the next step, but the situation was changed by the research of self-similarity in the last week. A collection with a collection, indeed, it was a good idea to convey this complicated definition in a very simple things, so I tried my best to realize it this week.

Then I made several collections use different material, color, content and shape.

Collection 1: 17 types of leaves in SOHO Square, including the photo, shadow, outline and sample.

Collection 2: Unfinished collection

Collection 3: Half-finished, different letter form of the word: WOW.

Collection 4: 11 maps of famous museums in England.

Collection 5: A Christmas card with collection of photos and memory. It also has the feature of self-similarity.

The fractal geometry in nature

As I did my research on everything about plants, there was a very interesting theory attracting me a lot: the fractal geometry in nature. This theory is based on a very complicated mathematics method and embodies in most natural substance, plant is one of the best examples of this phenomenon.
And there is another famous example of fractal geometry: the mandelbrot set.

This is a 3D model of leaves that I did to illustrate the fractal geometry in plants.