Field of Creases
Columbia GSAPP / Advanced VI Studio / Spring 2026
Instructor: Jing Liu
At Hirakubo, Ishigaki, this Yaeyama Jōfu production and meditation retreat begins with wind. Shaped by ocean currents, typhoons, and continuous airflows between sea and land, the site is approached as a field of forces rather than a fixed ground. Instead of resisting these conditions, the project works with them, treating wind as a material.
A grid acts as a negotiator rather than an imposed order, adapting to trees, topography, and wind paths through bending, fragmentation, and recalibration. Form emerges from environmental forces rather than predetermined geometry. Warped membranes and creased surfaces register air pressure, guiding deformation and distributing tension.
Drawing from the logic of Yaeyama Jōfu, the project explores fabric as an adaptable system that can be modified through coating, weaving, and composite assembly to respond to heat, sunlight, moisture, and airflow. As wind moves through these surfaces, sound reveals the invisible, transforming space into an instrument for listening and attunement.
Rejecting permanence and control, the project embraces contingency, proposing architecture as an evolving fabric that is responsive, performative, and grounded in coexistence.
Grid in nature, forming rooms of different conditions
Not an imposition, but coalescence: Grids deform based on the location and density of the trees
Variously sized rooms of different conditions
The bottom of the curtains are sometimes not affixed to the ground, thereby moving with the wind
Treatment of the fabric (Yaeyama Jofu) providing various options such as resistance to heat