Wiki World: Exploring Children’s Architecture Education and Community Building in Rural China

Selected as one of ArchDaily’s Best New Practices for 2024, Wiki World is pioneering a fresh approach to children’s architectural education and community building. This Wuhan-based studio simplifies the concept of architecture, moving beyond grandiose connotations and focusing on ‘building a house’—exploring the wisdom and methods of ‘ordinary people.’ Building, according to Wiki World, is not only a human instinct but also a way to connect with and understand nature. They see an opportunity in the open-source spirit, empowering communities in rural China to design and construct their own creations. By providing the right frameworks, Wiki World is able to scale and make architecture accessible to an increasing number of people. The studio organizes workshops across China, guiding parents and children through one community-building experience after another.

In an interview with ArchDaily, Wiki World shared their approach to workshop design and organizational processes, drawing from both their expertise and the fresh perspectives gained from their young participants. They discussed how their views on nature and community design have shaped their work, their strategies for effective communication, and their current challenges and successes. They also explained how they bridge the gap between different teams to inspire creativity and foster hands-on engagement with users.

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Read on to discover the principles and insights that guide Wiki World’s multidisciplinary practice.

ArchDaily (HanShuang): What has been the growth journey in architectural design? Are there any special events or experiences in your past studies or experiences? What are the influences on you?

Wiki World (Wei Mu): The core team of WikiWorld consists of architects, landscape designers, and industrial designers. As co-founder, I worked in architecture offices in Spain and Norway. In 2011, I returned to my alma mater to teach and founded the Advanced Architecture Lab (AaL) and the current WikiWorld.

Childhood experiences have been particularly important to me. Although architects undergo professional training, before we even enter university, we have already spent years living in houses, streets, and natural environments. It’s difficult to escape from these experiences and their influence. I was fortunate to grow up in a courtyard in a northern Chinese city, surrounded by poplars, jujube trees, velvet trees, and seasonal flowers and plants. Our yard was also home to many animals. At one point, we had seven dogs, two cats, pigeons, rabbits, goats, and turtles, all raised by my family at different times. We would occasionally be visited by hedgehogs, wild cats, and even injured eagles. As a boy, that yard felt like my universe. The changing seasons became my calendar. I even remember the exact spot where the first plant would sprout after winter, and I would wait for it every day as if it were my first friend of spring. Many years later, I returned to that now-abandoned yard and realized my ‘universe’ was only 150 square meters.

While in college, I participated in a rural construction workshop organized by Taiwanese architect Xie Yingjun. More precisely, I joined 40 college students from across the country to build houses in a rural area. Over the course of a month, we personally carried building materials and worked together to construct Earth Houses 1, 2, and 3, which were designed for post-disaster reconstruction in Southeast Asia. These houses utilized light steel, timber, and rammed earth structures. I am deeply grateful for this experience, as it was the first time the construction process felt truly tangible to me. It also resolved a major question I had: what is the relationship between an abstract 254k DWG file and the final, immense building?

During my time in Norway, I gained even more new insights. For example, I learned that the ancient Vikings used reverse engineering from the design of their ships to build their houses. I also visited a remote fjord village where the locals have a long tradition of constructing wooden cabins suited for cold climates. Remarkably, they don’t use drawings or technical documents; instead, their building techniques are encoded in local poems. With this knowledge, they can use local materials to build cold-resistant wooden houses of varying sizes. These cabins, which resemble a family of structures, would certainly excite both topologists and typologists.

These fragments of my experience have shaped my belief that architecture is not an isolated technology or a set of predefined styles. Architecture can be approached from many different perspectives. It is a vast, social knowledge system: Viking ships became wooden houses, architectural blueprints are hidden in poems, and a small yard filled with plants and animals is a beautiful world in itself. The process of construction is far more captivating than any rendering.

ArchDaily: When did WikiWorld start working with children and families to design and build? What was the occasion that initiated this mode of building? Did anything interesting happen the first time?

Wiki World: In 2010, I returned to Huazhong University of Science and Technology to take up a teaching position and established the Advanced Architecture Lab (AaL). At the time, we explored the possibilities of prefabricated bamboo and wood construction using digital technology. In fact, the first to join our initiative were my undergraduate students. Together, we spent a month constructing a 100{14ff71e4f273baab5bec81dc525908f6c873497a5ac78f00770a25913b288d25} prefabricated bamboo building next to the School of Architecture. This not only provided students with hands-on construction experience but also offered valuable insights into participatory building. It became apparent that, through digital technology and detailed component design, building could be as straightforward as assembling LEGO.

‘Kids Can Build.’
What started purely out of curiosity—a modern caveman-like experiment to fulfill my childhood dream of building a treehouse—evolved into something bigger. I wanted my own children to have the opportunity to reconnect with nature. While volunteering at a Norwegian kindergarten, I envied the Nordic children, who spent their days exploring nature and engaging in hands-on activities. I feared that the Asian exam-oriented education system would stifle children’s sensitivities. So in 2012, we had a brainstorm: Who would like to join us in designing and building a house in nature?

The response was enthusiastic, revealing that many people shared our vision. We selected 36 families from over 200 applicants through a questionnaire. Over the course of three months, on weekends, we attempted, for the first time, to have children design, present their ideas, collaborate in teams, and participate in real construction.

‘Have You Watered the House?’
Building a house seems to be encoded in the genes of mammals; once started, it must be finished. Under the children’s vision, the ‘City in the Sky’ was built using living bamboo, allowing the house to grow. One day after the house was completed, I received a message from a father who participated in the project. His son had been particularly concerned about the ‘City in the Sky’ and reminded me: “Have you watered the house?” This was perhaps the most magical description of architecture I had ever heard. In fact, many families continued to return periodically to maintain the house. What started as a project had transcended the idea of a simple workshop or event, becoming a genuine concern for the environment that the children had improved.

Since then, every spring, people come to us asking, “Are we building something again this year?” Although each workshop leaves us physically exhausted, by the time spring rolls around, we are re-energized and ready to go again. Through crowdfunding, co-construction, and sharing, we have continued these projects.

At the same time, more friends have embraced the idea of returning to nature. As we accumulated knowledge of digital LEGO-like construction techniques, we began building permanent, functional houses as well.

We hope to see an era where machine-made architecture is not the only option, where architecture returns to the hands of the people. Everyone can create their own world, and that is why we named ourselves ‘WikiWorld.’

ArchDaily: How has this model of building changed for children? What are the effects on the family? What can you learn from observing their building process? What are the implications for your view of architecture?

Wiki World: Interestingly, some of the children who participated in our early projects have already applied to architecture schools :-). According to feedback from their parents, what the children gained most was “completing a very challenging task and building tremendous confidence.” Initially, there were some ‘rumors’ that parents weren’t fully convinced this was a reliable plan, but the outcome spoke for itself.

Our projects are particularly appealing to Chinese families. Usually, it’s the mothers who first bring their children, treating it like a regular art class. But once we move into the real construction phase, the fathers start to join in, and eventually, it becomes a family affair. The father often becomes the child’s assistant, while the mother provides support in the background. One father, who had been struggling to balance his busy work schedule with spending time with his child, told me excitedly that when a stool at home broke, his child insisted he fix it because, after all, “Dad is someone who can build houses.” It seems that building and collaborating are instincts deeply rooted in human nature. This is perhaps the true significance of primitive construction—bringing families together in rare and meaningful collaboration.

We enjoy this seemingly complex (and sometimes troublesome) process, especially when listening to children’s ideas about houses and the future. Their raw perspectives, unbound by professional training, have offered us valuable insights into architecture and space. Children are giants in their own minds, not yet constrained by rules and regulations, and in many ways, they have become our teachers. For example, children have imagined houses with many corners, buildings with eyes, and minimalist cabins just for heads. We’ve “learned” a great deal from them.

In one rural project in southern China, after meeting the functional needs of the local villagers, the children wanted to mark a cross on the Earth. In an urban park renewal project, the group felt that the abandoned forest was primitive and mysterious and shouldn’t be overbuilt. Instead, they envisioned the house as a guardian, with the house embodying the spirit of the place.

We really value this collaborative design process, as if each building is given life through it. There are countless ways to start a design, but we focus on a certain rationality that balances the present, the local context, the participants, and the future users.

ArchDaily: How can children be educated to understand construction without specialized knowledge, and to abandon the ‘high concepts’ shaped by architecture, such as the terms archetype, settlement, sharing, and communality?

Wiki World: Learn by Experiencing: We use a game called One Mu Painting (The Birth of a Tribe) to help participants explore fundamental architectural concepts in an immersive way.

We set up a canvas that’s one mu in size (667 square meters, a basic unit of land measurement in China). Beyond experiencing the texture, gravity, and playing with the wind, the activity functions like a simulation of the birth of a tribe. Each participant assumes a role within the tribe or represents a city function, like a post office or a school. The children collaborate and communicate: Who will be neighbors with whom? Where would the post office be most convenient? Would you mind having a playground next to your house? Where will our tribe expand next? As the game progresses, the children become more immersed in their roles, and the game naturally evolves into a self-directed experience.

We believe immersive experiences are a more effective way to educate. Through participation, “advanced concepts” are transformed into common sense, simple ideas, and genuine expressions. In the game, children experience the origins of tribes and cities, the concepts of privacy and public space, trade, and neighborhood dynamics. Eventually, this part of the game results in a colorful map, and the children often wish it could go on forever.

What we enjoy most is observing how a group of children who don’t know each other gradually become friends through role-playing. They start to take it seriously, caring about how many trees are in their yard or whether they can build a road to the territory of a newly made friend. Perhaps this is how tribes really began. Of course, there are always a few who prefer solitude, placing their houses far away from others and drawing winding paths for themselves. I imagine they must be maverick little fellows.

ArchDaily: Are there priorities in their education? Sensitivity to nature? The training of hands-on skills? To the training of creative thinking?

Wiki World: This is a great question. To be honest, using the term “education” to describe our work makes us a bit uneasy because it implies a hierarchy and a knowledge relationship. While some may refer to it as PBL (Project-Based Learning), we prefer to call it “doing something cool together.” The project itself is exciting and challenging, so everyone needs to develop their thinking and skills together. Architecture, after all, is filled with valuable wisdom. Our focus follows this rough order: innovation, perception, workflow, teamwork, and hands-on ability.

Our activities are not intended to turn everyone into architects. Rather, they simulate the experience of facing extremely challenging tasks—challenges often driven by our own curiosity. The goal is to learn how to tackle these tasks by exploring, asking questions, collaborating, and using one’s strengths, ultimately gaining a sense of accomplishment from both the process and the beautiful result. Curiosity and internal motivation are like atomic energy; children will efficiently finish their homework just so they can participate in the weekend construction festival. They can stay focused for 10 hours straight, working until sunset to complete a project on time.

We are planting a seed. As the children grow up, maybe every challenge they face in the future will become a “building project.” At the very least, they will know what “structurally sound” means. This is why the term “architect” implies more than just a profession—it speaks to being a creator and a builder.

ArchDaily Is there a complete theoretical and practical system for the development of innovative educational campaigns and ‘co-constructive’ natural building practices?

Wiki World: Special thanks to our French partners, Magali Paris and Walter Simone, as well as Professor Patrice Doat, who has consistently provided us with inspiration and support. Together, we have persisted in these experiments for over a decade.

Our recent lecture, titled “Back to the Future,” humorously touches on using digital architectural technology to reconnect people and collaborate as if we were primitive humans. While we are far from having a fully developed theoretical system, we’ve accumulated a wealth of experiences (and lessons) to share :-(. So, we’re happy to discuss how we’ve been working over the past few years.

First, we’ve established core principles that guide us:

• Open Architecture: Play like a game, build like LEGO.
• Sustainability: Digital wood, recycling, and zero harm.
• Build Together: Collaborative design and community involvement.
• Natural Education: Architecture as a real-life learning process.
• Shared Vision and Happy Ending: These are key criteria we use to evaluate each project.

Second, the structure of our company has evolved. Unlike traditional architectural firms that are primarily led by architects and engineers, “WikiWorld” is organized into four main teams:

1. Design Team: Responsible for planning, architecture, landscape, visual identity, furniture, and other design elements.
2. Co-Building Team: Runs the Global Wiki Building School projects and organizes building festivals.
3. Offline Camp Operation Team: Handles bookings, room services, and wild camping assistance.
4. Online Community Team: Manages the online community, events, and membership.

However, the most significant shift has been in our working process. Here’s an overview of our current workflow:

1. Design: Unlike traditional design services, we first convince clients to adopt our open design, open construction, and open operation model.
2. Collaborative Design: We bring together clients, local communities, and social groups to initiate a collaborative design process.
3. Digital Prefabrication: Using digital technology, we transform buildings into modular, LEGO-like components.
4. Co-Building: In the construction phase, beyond infrastructure work, we invite community partners to help with functional elements.
5. Community Operation: We continuously share project progress and plans with the community.
6. Lifecycle Co-operation: When the camp officially opens, it signals the start of a new construction phase. As more members join, new ideas emerge, and the project is constantly evolving through a bottom-up approach. It feels like the project is always under construction.

ArchDaily: How do you define ‘architecture’ and ‘architect’ now that you have been practicing in nature for a long time?

Wiki World: “Architecture is about giving form to the places where people live.” We particularly appreciate this definition from Alejandro Aravena. In this description, the focus begins with “people”: those who design with us, those for whom we design, those who build with us, and those who use the spaces. In a world increasingly influenced by open-source technology, we see architecture and architectural technology as a form of civic engineering. By respecting collective intelligence and collaborative design, we create spaces filled with vitality, much like the 150-square-meter universe of my childhood.

Perhaps we could call ourselves “unconfident architects.” Despite having collaborated with over 50 organizations, more than 3,000 families, and over 40,000 community members to build and experience over 200 buildings of various sizes, WikiWorld, as a tech company, also holds more than 30 patents.

We particularly enjoy how communities breathe life and spirit into each project. For example, one of our most cherished events is the New Year’s “Ash Museum.” Together with the community, we build a small house where everyone brings items they want to bid farewell to, displaying them inside the house. The house is then set on fire, and the ashes are collected in bottles. Only when this process is complete is the Ash Museum finished, ready to welcome the new year.

ArchDaily: How do you establish spatial order in the small house? What elements of space do you focus on?

Wiki World: Living in harmony with nature and fostering community collaboration within natural settings are the focal points of our projects. These are open-ended topics; there is no definitive answer to the possibilities of living, and no one dictates what a café must look like. The form of architecture varies greatly due to the diversity of environments, locations, and communities.

We focus on how the natural environment shapes our buildings, paying attention to basic modularity and spatial order while valuing the comprehensive experience created through materiality. We understand that buildings are living entities. By moving beyond conventional notions of area or size, we shift our focus to the relationship between living behaviors and the environment. Solutions for space often stray far from everyday living experiences, sometimes bordering on obsession. Embracing “smallness” brings us closer to materials and makes us more sensitive to our surroundings. Since we are already in the forest, we might as well spend a day barefoot, listening to the sound of dry leaves crunching on the terrace. We strive to cultivate a precise relationship between the house and its natural environment.

From the ground, trees can be seen through strategically placed windows; each cabin is an elevated structure, designed to avoid contact with the ground, with no walls or artificial landscapes—nature itself serves as the best wrapper. Beginning with desire and culminating in an appropriate relationship with nature, many of our houses have prototype stories, as reflected in the names of some of our cabins.

ArchDaily: Is this spatial archetype of the small house applicable to urban settlements?

Wiki World: I believe so. In fact, we have already conducted some open construction activities in the city. Although they are currently only temporary projects, we believe there will be opportunities to get involved in real urban renewal and plug-in projects.

We have just built a settlement on a narrow plot in a cultural tourism park. Five residential units are connected by a 70-meter-long corridor, which can form flexible and diverse living divisions and social relationships.

ArchDaily: As you continue to practice, do you add new elements to the construction, such as technology and materials?

Wiki World: I think so, even technology is not our aim; instead, we base our choices on the needs of future projects. For example, in extremely remote locations, we might need some energy and environmental technologies to support, or perhaps some innovative community ideas that come to mind. In fact, on each project, we more or less experiment with a variety of materials and technologies. We prefer technologies and materials that are open and adaptable.