TAO (TRACE ARCHITECTURE OFFICE) was founded by Li Hua in 2009 in Beijing. It is a design studio committed to architecture, urban, landscape and furniture design. It was formerly known as UAS (Universal Architecture Studio) founded by Li Hua in 2003.
Trace is surviving mark of things, and evidence of time fragments accumulation. The production of architecture is a process with confrontation of various will powers and values, full of contradiction and complexity. Architecture itself is a record of its time and nature.
Looking at “trace and process” suggests our approach to architecture. TAO is concerned with the social, cultural and ecological significance in making process of architecture from design to construction instead of just form as result; While architecture always face the conflict between past, present and future, between regional and global, between individual and collective, TAO rejects a simple and brutal attitude and explores how to achieve a subtle balance.
Contemporary architecture falls into an obsession to fancy forms and media based star-cult in the context of globalized consumerism, while architecture lost its ontological and essential meaning. TAO is critical at architecture becoming either fashions or dogmas. We pursue ontological origins of architecture as intellectual roots of our design thinking.
TAO (TRACE ARCHITECTURE OFFICE) 迹. 建筑事务所由建筑师华黎于2009年在北京创立，是一家从事建筑、城市、景观及家具设计的设计事务所。TAO的前身是成立于2003年的UAS普筑设计事务所。
“迹”是事物发展留下的印记，也是时间片段积累过程的见证。建筑的产生是一个经历了多重意志和价值冲突、叠加的过程，充满了矛盾性与复杂性。每个建筑都是其产生的时代背景及内在机制的记录和见证。关注“痕迹与过程”表明TAO事务所对建筑的态度：一、关注建筑从设计到建造的整个生产过程中所涉及的社会、人文与生态的意义，而不仅是作为结果的形式。二、关注当建筑面对过去、当下与未来、地域性与全球化、及个性与集体意志等矛盾时，如何寻求一种微妙的平衡。
当代世界全球范围的消费主义与资本的欲望膨胀使建筑常常陷入对形式游戏和明星风格的迷恋，而忽略其本体的意义和真实的感受。TAO事务所对建筑沦为时尚符号或教条均持批判性的态度，我们的工作力图使建筑回到场所意义的营造、对气候的回应、材料与建造的方式、对资源的合理利用等本质命题的思考，根据每一个项目的特殊条件进行针对性的探索，这构成TAO事务所项目工作的核心内容。
TAO 迹. 建筑事务所创始人/主持建筑师 华黎1994年毕业于清华大学，获建筑学学士学位，1997年获清华大学建筑学硕士学位，1999年毕业于耶鲁大学，获建筑学硕士学位，之后曾分别工作于纽约West fourth Architecture 和 Herbert Beckhard & Frank Richlan建筑设计事务所
