From “Site” to “Place”

Fan Jiujiang

　　A “site” refers to a location designated for activities, construction, or experimentation; for architects, the site constitutes an integrated system within the broader context of the project area. A “place,” by contrast, denotes a specific portion of the environment that is occupied by particular people or events—specifically, the setting for activities associated with a particular building or public space. When the physical and human environments converge to form an urban spatial realm imbued with distinctive meaning, that urban space acquires the quality of a “place” only after it has been invested with specific connotations related to society, history, culture, and human activity.

　　I lay out, one by one in my mind, the site’s intricate, minutiae-laden, interwoven, and almost nebulous array of attributes. Drawing on my memory, experience, intellect, and emotions as catalysts, I distill from this haze the most essential core elements—what I call “atmosphere.” Finally, employing the language of architecture, I articulate this atmosphere as precisely as possible, giving it form as a concrete physical space. In this way, the place itself emerges as a “copy without an origin.”