Noirhaus stands boldly at the intersection of strength and elegance, a brutalist Mediterranean home, dark in tone yet gracefully bathed in vibrant, playful light. Nestled on a compact site alongside a lush green belt, the architectural challenge was clear: optimize limited space while preserving a profound connection to the surrounding natural environment.

From the Desire for a Borderless Classroom to an Architecture Intertwined with Nature – Cheewit Cheewa Home of Nature or The Sikhio Natural Agriculture Learning Center was conceived by Dr. Mavin Dankul, who envisioned expanding the Project Approach model of learning through outdoor classrooms at Prasarnwittaya School. Its primary mission is to cultivate life skills and foster environmental awareness among children and youth. At its core, the program embraces an integrated learning philosophy, "From Seed to Table," encompassing soil restoration, water management, renewable energy, and a zero-waste system. The ultimate aim is to encourage sustainable self-reliance, guided by the principles of a sufficiency economy.

For the Hakka people, the oil-paper umbrella carries profound cultural meaning. It is seen as a symbol of wholeness, reunion, and destiny, a reminder that life's encounters are guided by both chance and connection. Even within the Chinese character for "umbrella" (傘), one finds the repeated presence of the character for "person" (人), suggesting the gathering, reliance, and interdependence between people.

Youyou Community where the DECK locates is an old residential community located in Huamu Sub-district, Pudong New Area, Shanghai. Constructed in the context of Pudong's development, it represents one of the earliest "self-built new towns" in the area. Starting in the early 1990s, these settlements were built using farming land expropriation compensation funds, developed independently by local village collectives1. Viewed forty years later, the community presents an external spatial experience characterized by confinement, enclosure, and introversion, lacking relatively concentrated spaces for social activities. This is largely due to the setting of its road system, which is composed primarily of community-level streets. Most of the streets are mixed-use for both vehicles and bicycles, two-way traffic with a total width not exceeding 9 meters. Narrow sidewalks flank these roads, which are severely packed with roadside parking. And the site of the DECK was a closed-off greenbelt with disordered vegetation, zigzag internal paths with almost no activity areas before its renewal. Missing public character, coupled with its relatively complex spatial structure, undoubtedly exacerbated the negative perceptions of the overall community space.