Shaohua Di

Founded in 2009, PRAXiS d' ARCHITECTURE is actively engaged in a broad range of projects of various scales. Our design begins with identification and analysis of cultural and physical context of the site and drawing inspirations from it. Then a theme of design is to be acquired. This theme will be tangibly represented through the device of architecture, and determines the nature of material, light and space. Then it will be transformed as a result of the reaction when it confronts with pragmatic requirements and other external forces. Sometimes the theme can be resolved into architecture, sometimes it cannot be resolved unless the theme is reacquired, because architecture bears practicality.

Shaohua Di is the founding principal in PRAXiS d' ARCHITECTURE. Her design adopts an ingenious and harmonious approach to integrate architecture and its surroundings based on her understandings of the context. She strives to create extraordinary spatial experiences by using economic, eco-friendly local materials and available means of construction. Regardless of project scale, she seeks to fully realize architecture's practical values while fulfilling it with spirits. She graduated from Tianjin University with a B.Arch and MIT with an MArch and a SMarchS in Urbanism. In 2003 she received Francis Ward Chandler Prize at MIT. She has been studio critic for Tianjing University, China Central Academy of Fine Arts and Dessau Institute of Architecture. She is teaching a graduate architecture studio at Tianjin University. She was invited as a judge for 2020 WAN Awards. PRAXiS d' ARCHITECTURE's work has been widely published, and received many awards including 2019 WAN Bauhaus Gold Prize, 2019 Master Architecture Prize Firm of the Year awards, 2020 German design awards Winner, 2019 China Architecture Design and Survey Awards, 2016-2017 Iconic Architecture Awards, 2016 WIN for Retail space under 200 sqm Winner etc.