Chapter 90 Final
There is a preparation room on the east side of the podium in the small auditorium where the remaining four finalists are waiting.
Hearing the thunderous applause outside, everyone became a little nervous.
"Zhou Ruowei won first place in both the preliminary and semi-final rounds, and now he is the first to defend his thesis. It seems that his work is very competitive. Do we still have a chance to beat him?"
"His residential design concept is very advanced. Compared with his, my design seems so backward."
"And he was very well prepared. The model is so eye-catching."
Everyone's eyes were on Tao Nanfeng, as if asking: Tao Nanfeng, are you nervous?
Tao Nanfeng, who had experienced countless life and death tests, did not feel nervous.
That night when we lived in the thatched house, we heard the roar of wild beasts from the mountain, and the four girls in the dormitory all hid in their quilts and wiped their tears;
On the night of the storm, she carried all the quilts in the dormitory and walked towards the field office building, one foot deep and one foot shallow. The rain hit her face, fishy and cold.
Forced by the weasel and demanded to build the brick house within 30 days at the cost of her future, she led the educated youth to work day and night and finally succeeded.
Starting from September 1973, Tao Nanfeng's life changed dramatically, and she also grew up through surviving desperate situations time and time again.
Although the price of growing up is painful, it makes her stronger and braver.
Zhou Ruowei is very good, and she is not bad either.
Betting or competition can bring out her potential. Only when you meet challenges with high morale can your life be colorful.
Amid the applause, a call came from outside the preparation room.
"The next person to take the stage is Tao Nanfeng, the runner-up in the semi-finals."
Tao Nanfeng smiled and picked up the slide projector that had been placed aside: "It's my turn."
Qi Mingxue and Wang Yan from the college class followed closely behind.
Qi Mingxue held a cardboard architectural model, and Wang Yan held a stack of prepared slides.
The three of them walked up to the podium together, causing puzzled discussions among the crowd.
"Slide projector? Tao Nanfeng's defense format is quite innovative. Our professor rarely uses slides in class."
"Tao Nanfeng's group also has models! Although not as beautiful as Zhou Ruowei's miniature model made of colored plastic plates, it can also clearly express the relationship between the architectural planes."
"Ahaha, their group's housing is a corridor-style dormitory, which is completely different from Zhou Ruowei's apartment building."
"It's a bit like the house I lived in when I was a child. It's quite interesting. Listen to what Tao Nanfeng has to say."
Tao Nanfeng stood on the podium, gently put down the slide projector, and hung the design drawing on the blackboard in front.
She is tall and slender with slender limbs, but her pitching skills are full of power. The professors sitting in the audience all gave Tao Shouxin a thumbs up.
"Lao Tao, you have raised this girl well. She is becoming more and more outstanding."
"When Nanfeng was little, he only thought she was beautiful, with eyes and eyebrows like a painting. Now that she has grown up, she has become more and more smart, with smooth movements and a natural and graceful manner. Her beauty is not her most eye-catching feature."
Wu Xianling sighed, with a hint of melancholy and nostalgia in her eyes.
"Lao Tao, Nanfeng has the best qualities of both you and Teacher Xu. He has both your noble and proud character and Xiqin's gentleness and generosity. The most rare thing is the open and broad look between his eyebrows, which is very impressive!"
Listening to everyone praising Tao Nanfeng, Tao Shouxin felt proud, but he said modestly: "Don't praise her, she is still young."
Looking up at his daughter standing on the podium, shining brightly, Tao Shouxin felt soft and happy inside.
In Tao Shouxin's opinion, it is already very good that Tao Nanfeng can enter the finals of the design competition. As for whether he can win the championship or whether he will be defeated by Zhou Ruowei, it doesn’t matter.
If you lose, you lose. So what if you bow and apologize and say “I have connections”? A father is his daughter’s support, is there anything wrong with that?
Tao Shouxin was a tough person who only addressed issues of principle; he was always open-minded about this kind of false reputation.
After Zhou Ruowei finished his defense, he packed up the models and drawings and placed them in the preparation room. He then walked to the back corner of the small auditorium and silently watched Tao Nanfeng, who was as brilliant as a star on the stage.
She only had to stand there to attract everyone's attention.
As excellent as she is, she refuses to even look at me. It hurts my heart just thinking about it.
Everything was ready, Tao Nanfeng raised his eyes and looked down.
His eyes were like water, and the whole auditorium fell silent in an instant.
Everyone, including the chattering crowd in the corridor and outside the window, kept silent and waited attentively for her to speak.
"Hello everyone, I'm Tao Nanfeng. This residential design work was completed by me, Qi Mingxue, Wang Yan... a total of seven students. The name of our team is Beidou."
This opening remark immediately aroused everyone's interest.
The Big Dipper, seven students participated in the design, and the team was named Beidou? Really interesting.
The slide projector was turned on, and Wang Yan put the first prepared slide into the machine. The light was projected onto the white wall, and there was silence below.
"Let me first introduce to you the residents and users of the residence in my design work, the educated youth from Xiufengshan Farm."
One after another, black and white photos of youthful people are displayed on the white wall.
The little girl with pigtails and the young man with short flat hair, wearing simple clothes, a pair of Liberation shoes on their feet, and a straw hat on their backs, stood in the fields with bright eyes full of longing for their future life.
Some people were sweating profusely in the rice fields; some were squatting on the edge of the field to cool off; some were standing next to the thatched house in cotton jackets and cotton hats, grinning foolishly.
"Oh——" there was an exclamation from below.
The educated youth refer to a large number of young people who voluntarily moved from cities to rural areas, farms, and military corps to work in agriculture and develop and defend border areas starting from 1950, especially after the college entrance examination system was terminated in 1966.
Every year, millions of educated young people go to the countryside to receive re-education from poor and lower-middle peasants with the idea that "we also have two hands and will not live off the city for free." From cities to rural areas, their culture, thoughts and concepts are impacted. The harsh environment has forged a diligent and pragmatic attitude and a strong sense of solidarity.
There is a group of workers, peasants and soldiers students on the campus of Jiangcheng Jianzhu University who were selected from the educated youth group and they remember that time very much. As soon as they saw the photos of educated youth being projected on the slides, they all shouted with excitement.
“Educated youth! Educated youth who went to the countryside!”
Tao Nanfeng smiled slightly, and his smile was as warm as a spring breeze, making people feel comfortable.
"I was recommended by Xiufengshan Farm to study in the college class. Since 1968, nearly 300 educated youths from Dexian, Yuezhou, Nanxian, Jiangcheng... have been sent to Xiufengshan Farm. The farm is more than 1,500 meters above sea level, with no water or electricity, and only a rugged mountain road connecting it to the town. Because of its remote location and inconvenient transportation, it is very difficult to transport building materials such as bricks, tiles, cement, and steel bars to the mountain, so... the housing conditions here are very poor.
How bad is it? Please look at this photo.
The roof is thatched, the roof frame is made of wooden pillars and bamboo strips, the floor is made of rammed earth, and there is a large bunk bed that can accommodate eight people in a room. The song in the Chinese textbook about the thatched cottage being destroyed by the autumn wind can be perfectly interpreted here. ”
The sentence popped up in everyone’s mind: "The autumn wind howled in August, blowing away the three layers of thatch on my roof."
Some people burst out laughing, while others had red eyes.
"This group of educated youth dedicated their youth and sweat to the farm. As they get older, many of them have reached the age of marriage and family. It is obviously no longer appropriate for them to live in a large dormitory. Rebuilding the educated youth camp for them has become one of my tasks as the head of the infrastructure section."
Tao Nanfeng's voice is low and soft, like the ending note of a cello. In her narration, she gradually led everyone into an infrastructure story.
The existing living conditions seriously fail to meet the living needs of the educated youth;
It is located in the mountains, building materials are difficult to obtain, and the construction cost is high.
Different educated youth had different demands for housing - unmarried people wanted to live in a single dormitory with complete facilities; married people wanted a private space for couples to live together; those with children wanted variable building space so that they could take care of their children when they were young and have independent space for their children when they grew up.
Designing a suitable house under such circumstances really tests the designer's ingenuity.
Even the professors present frowned.
"Residents have different needs, so it's very difficult to design such a house."
"Why do we have to put these three groups of people together in one space when we can design them into singles buildings, couples buildings, and family buildings?"
"Lao Tao, your daughter is very courageous, but the work she wants to design this time is too difficult. Is it okay?"
Wu Xianling snorted coldly and rolled her eyes at the speaker: "What do you know! I'm a judge. I've seen Tao Nanfeng's work. It's not a reckless act, but a well-thought-out one."
The teacher who was criticized by Wu Xianling touched his nose and said self-deprecatingly: "Teacher Wu admires Tao Nanfeng very much. That's right. You five judges have seen it in advance, so you naturally know it."
Tao Shouxin was in a good mood and came out to smooth things over.
"Everyone keep calm and listen to Nanfeng's statement first. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask during the Q&A session later."
Tao Nanfeng paused slightly and made a gesture to Wang Yan.
The photo was removed from the slide projector and replaced with a hand-drawn architectural plan.
The floor plan was projected onto the white wall, and with the help of the architectural model that Qi Mingxue slightly lifted up, the architectural plan of the educated youth dormitory building was clearly displayed.
"I have a good friend who worked at the Jiangcheng Towel Factory. She has five siblings and when she returned home from the farm, there wasn't even a bed for her to sleep on.
My eldest sister got married and pregnant, but she had not yet been allocated housing by her work unit, so the couple could only stay at her parents' home first. The second sister and the fourth sister slept in the same bed, separated by a curtain from the eldest sister and her husband. The parents lived in one room with their youngest son. The living room and the hallway were filled with the family's belongings, including honeycomb coal, old furniture, shoes, hats, clothes... There was no place to step in the house.
Who doesn’t want to live in a new house? Who doesn't want a separate bedroom and a separate bed? Who doesn’t want a big kitchen, big bathroom and big living room? Who doesn’t want privacy?
But we are poor now. We don’t have the money to build so many houses, and we don’t have the ability to build such big houses!
I wish I could have thousands of mansions, and bring joy to all the poor people in the world - this is my dream, and it is also the dream of all our infrastructure cadres. ”
Speaking of this, Tao Nanfeng's eyes flashed through the dark residence and cramped space of Xiao Aiyun's parents' home, and the various smells in the air.
Tao Nanfeng's gaze met Zhou Ruowei with a hint of sharpness, and Zhou Ruowei understood her subtext.
——It is a good thing to have advanced design concepts, but designers should focus on the present. If theory is disconnected from actual conditions, it will become a castle in the air.
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