https://practiceofcare.com Practice of Care Fri, 09 Jan 2026 05:27:27 +0000 https://practiceofcare.com en https://practiceofcare.com/Index Fri, 13 Jan 2023 22:25:48 +0000 Practice of Care https://practiceofcare.com/Index + building (verb) ︎ beds and balconies︎ a bigger splash︎ living on the screen ︎ buddha plus ︎ the arctic stories untold ︎ architecture as media ︎ tkarón:to cabin + (ambiguous) making ︎curtain Wall 2.0: queer camouflage ︎ da chven vitsek’vet ︎ inkbody ︎ in december, it never rains in perth, australia + writing ︎ grandmotherly beach day ︎ happy together times five ︎ look behind the curtain https://practiceofcare.com/About Sat, 23 Dec 2023 20:54:26 +0000 Practice of Care https://practiceofcare.com/About Practice of CareCai Sheng-yu 蔡 胜 愉 My practice explores the complexities and fragility of human conditions and connections, responding through building, making, projecting, and writing. As a faithful believer of Haraway’s cyborg framework, I am constantly seeking a hybridized human future where rigid categories dissolve to conceive alternative forms of solidarity. Wish to connect with you (click the centre of this site, if you haven’t figured it out yet) ! > c.v. > instagram > linkedin © 2025 O-Sheng. All rights reserved. https://practiceofcare.com/Beds-and-Balconies Fri, 09 Jan 2026 05:27:27 +0000 Practice of Care https://practiceofcare.com/Beds-and-Balconies Beds and BalconiesIn collaboration with Yanbo Li Yale University 2025 Downtown New London is characterized by several distinct types of spaces, each with their own character (main streets, parking plazas, civic plazas, ferry terminals, monumental parking garages, waterfront promenades, residential streets, commercial “stroads,” railroad adjacent service roads, etc.) Although these types of space are very close in proximity, they do not feel spatially or programmatically connected. Using the diagram and foundational formal move of building-as-transect, we propose a linear urban intervention that traverses the southern portion of downtown New London from Washington St at the Frontier Communications building to the Thames River at the Fishers Island Ferry. The building-as-transect is not necessarily one long building, but a framework and a site strategy for architectural intervention. It is a framework for containing several distinct “scenes taking place in the urban.” In other words, the project can be thought of as a cinematic project of finding “scenes,” framing them, and stringing them together in one narrative. https://practiceofcare.com/Splash Thu, 08 Jan 2026 23:13:23 +0000 Practice of Care https://practiceofcare.com/Splash A Bigger Splash Yale University 2024 This adaptive-reuse project draws inspiration from several issues deeply relevant to this site: the significance of faith in the Dixwell community, exemplified by places like Mount Hope Temple; and the potential for water to serve a dual role in both the sacred and secular activities associated with these programs. I see the MHT Church as a vital anchor for the community, serving as both a spiritual center and an architecturally significant landmark at this urban intersection. I propose preserving it as an important spiritual space, with the altar relocated to a central hinge point. Additionally, a new rooftop is envisioned atop the church – a shallow pool for toddlers next to daycare – creating a dynamic contrast where children are playing above while adults are praying below, blending the sacred and the communal. On a larger scale, the church becomes a “connector” between the new library and the existing triple-decker, which will be repurposed into a laundromat to generate revenue. Together, this complex will form a social hub for Dixwell’s diverse demographics, offering a wide range of programs and activities. https://practiceofcare.com/Living-on-the-screen Sun, 23 Mar 2025 02:53:53 +0000 Practice of Care https://practiceofcare.com/Living-on-the-screen Living on the Screen Featured in Retrospecta 47 Yale University 2024 The project site, bordered by major roads and near Highway 91 in New Haven, is under constant surveillance from traffic cameras and windows of adjacent buildings, creating an atmosphere of surveillant tension. Serving Beijing East Village artist collective, who produced some most politically-and-socially-charged group performances in the 1990s, this project explores how their artistic practices can inform a new radical form of collective dwelling. This dwelling, conceived as a black box in its urban context, is shaped by the prospect and aspect projections taking place on-site. Visitors are invited to immersively experience the collective life of the artists, breaking the fourth wall and becoming part of the performance art itself. Their activities are recorded and projected on the existing building facades with a time delay. It aims to stimulate public engagement and provoke cultural, social, and political conversations. https://practiceofcare.com/Buddha Sat, 22 Mar 2025 03:02:46 +0000 Practice of Care https://practiceofcare.com/Buddha Buddha Plus Yale University 2023 In Minamiaoyama, Tokyo, an archaeological site has been unearthed, revealing a significant religious statue. A team of restoration technicians arrived, erecting temporary structures like workrooms, process rooms, and on-site offices for their restoration mission. As the restoration progressed, a decision was made to unveil the restoration process to the general public. Therefore, the once-temporary structures are methodically being dismantled, making way for the forming of permanent in-situ structures. These structures are set to house a future museum, serving as a tangible archive that narrates the discovery of the religious statue. Fragments of the statue are also being replicated and incorporated in the museum, becoming important artifacts in the meditation spaces for visitors. This project captures one moment of this transition from provisionality to permanence. https://practiceofcare.com/The-Arctic-Stories-Untold Sat, 14 Jan 2023 03:56:23 +0000 Practice of Care https://practiceofcare.com/The-Arctic-Stories-Untold The Arctic Stories Untold Toronto Metropolitan University 2020 The built environment within the vast and sublime Arctic biome in Canada is often overlooked due to its sparse population and remote location. In my undergraduate thesis, I explored the richness of Inuit vernacular cultures in the Canadian North and the complex history of settler colonialism in the region, culminating in a design proposal for a memorial museum to raise awareness of these significant narratives. https://practiceofcare.com/Inky Sun, 23 Mar 2025 20:17:18 +0000 Practice of Care https://practiceofcare.com/Inky Inkbody Yale University 2023 Inkbody is the moment when the body becomes both paper and landscape, absorbing ink until they are one organism. In 2001, Chinese artist Zhang Huan, based in New York City, presented a unique performance by transforming his face into a blank canvas. Three calligraphers, specially invited for the occasion, covered his facial canvas with various Chinese ink-inscribed words. Captured through nine photographs titled Family Tree, Zhang documented the visual narrative of the series, which unfolds as the intensity of the ink progressively amplifies, eventually engulfing and erasing Zhang's facial features. Historically formulated in China for writing and drawing, China ink is inherently cultural, but I ponder whether Inkbody is also cultural. An ancient Chinese proverb describes a knowledgeable person as having a stomach filled with ink. What constitutes an inkbody? As I gaze into Zhang's pale, vacant, and unemotional eyes in the final photograph of his Family Tree, I realize that race and gender have become irrelevant - the multitudes of bodies are unified through ink. Tattoo indicates permanence, but inkbody can be simultaneously permanent and temporary.On Zhang’s face, the three calligraphers wrote a combination of words from Chinese culture - idioms (Chengyu), tales, stories, names nostalgic to Zhang Huan, and ancient Chinese practices of physiognomy. Zhang wanted to accentuate his cultural lineage, his 'Chinese-ness,' by having China ink inscribed on his face. However, upon crossing the threshold, ink consumed all of Zhang’s recognizable features and identities. Zhang’s face, submerged in ink, no longer mirrors the social constructs that shaped him; he is now merely an organism conceived of ink. Taken to the extreme, it appears that cultures have been removed from the cultures in ink.Inkbody always has a punitive connotation. Inking (墨刑/黥面) is among the five penalties administered by the legal system of ancient dynastic China, the offender would be tattooed on the face or forehead with indelible ink, such as 奴 (Nú / male slave), 婢 (Bì / female slave), 盜 (Dào / thief), 賊 (Zéi / Bandit). During the Wu Zhou and Tang dynasties, Shangguan Wan'er (上官婉儿), a Chinese female politician, poet, and imperial consort, had once been subjected to the Inking penalty, which involved face-tattooing. Nevertheless, she ingeniously utilized ink to mend her "inkbody" and created a distinctive plum-blossom makeup style to gracefully embrace the area where the tattoo had been engraved on her face. This plum-blossom trend gained widespread admiration among the female populations back then.Inkbody encapsulates a sense of duality, where the body serves as either a canvas, a brush, or sometimes both. Mapped over the terrain of one’s body, ink flows, and no stroke is absolutely horizontal or vertical across the texture of human skin. Body is a canvas, a roll of paper, or a vast landscape where each ink drop travels through. A temporary inkbody is an ephemeral performance, but a permanent inkbody is a monument. Ink, on the body, forms a layer of poché between the interiority and external world, and the external world becomes the extension of the human body. Inkbody is always incomplete, cut through the skin. The thickness of the poché becomes an outlet of ink - as inkbody navigates the surrounding sites, it marks a territory of bodily perception and mental map. Our human bodies, engineered with prosthetic ink matter, becomes a drawing practice that measures, documents, and engages with perceptual realities. Note: Family Tree (2001), Zhang Huan https://practiceofcare.com/Perth Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:52:38 +0000 Practice of Care https://practiceofcare.com/Perth In December, it never rains in Perth, Australia Yale University 2023Rain-catcheres which transpose weather realities between New Haven, CT and its antipodes, Perth in Australia. Note: Rain-catcheres were made from Arakara's diagrams and Gins' writings, including her evocative series, Word Rain. https://practiceofcare.com/Media Sun, 15 Jan 2023 20:02:58 +0000 Practice of Care https://practiceofcare.com/Media Architecture as Media Toronto Metropolitan University 2019 The design of this museum is a highly contextual response. Situated next to the Yonge and Dundas intersection, the site has a unique triangular configuration that faces the busiest commercial area in the city. Overwhelmed by the surrounding billboards and advertisements, the museum embraces the nature of media and explores architecture’s role as a medium of information. It is not erected as a still artifact, but instead a dynamic canvas where carefully-curated visuals are exhibited on its cascading façade, communicating with passengers and enticing them to visit. A chaotic site like this calls for regulation and order. Thus, colonnades are employed to mediate the site constraints. The interior spaces of the museum are characterized by the rigidity of structures, the playfulness of the tectonics, and the abundance of materiality.