石仓契约博物馆

Location: Shicang Village, Songyang

Completion: 2017.12

自古以来，契约作为交换商品和建立互信的凭据，在社会中承担了重要角色，可谓是人类信任关系的基石。买卖、抵押、租赁、嫁娶等协作关系相应产生了不同种类的契约。契约记载和印迹着人类的宗教、历史、文明与文化。

项目和景观用地均沿袭梯田的地势，与四周的村庄中心和交通流线相互呼应补充，延续并补接了村庄、广场、交通形成的环路关系，成为连接两个村庄重要的公共文化场所。水作为场地引导性线索，饮水渠的水流沿袭地形而下并进入村庄，辅以碎石路径，溯源而上到达场地的过程有如寻觅，富于诗意。

"Hakka", meaning “the guest people”, immigrated to Shicang over 150 years ago and settled in with their rich Hakka heritage and systematic Hakka indenture culture, the law and keystone of Hakka society. The collection of Hakka indenture in past decades by a local elementary teacher, Mr. Que, has become biggest Hakka indenture collection and an important archive for Hakka heritage.

In fact the village name of "Shicang", meaning “stone storage”, comes from a folk legend that a magic grain cave was broken into and no longer produced grains but only stone, a broken of covenant between greedy human and magic spirits.

The museum volume sits on a terrace field and follows the original irrigation drainage from mountain into village. The building could be accessed from both sides with welcoming outdoor plaza, a free space for villagers and visitors to walk in.

The building plan is carried out with three exhibition rooms along the drainage, and local stone construction is used as building structure and retaining wall for the mountain. The interplay of indoor and outdoor, dark and light, void and volume, not only to remind an unique experiment of local multi–courtyards houses, but also to create an archaeological site contemplating village history and spirit of indenture.

A linear gap on the roof collects water from rain through the drainage to indicate a passage; the articulation of this roof gap can only allow direct sunlight into drainage during noon. A mist system is implanted to spray only around noon during the summer days. The heat and mist create a moving rainbow phenomenon when walking inside the museum.

The supporting program is distributed into adjacent village buildings as a preservation strategy. A private sector from Shanghai has engaged in this development by continuing to renovate houses into home kitchen and food workshops, home stay business, and other activities. These supporting facilities became part of the indenture museum. In another word, the whole village is a live museum for Hakka culture and heritage.