In recent years Shanghai has faced an incredible amount of development which has relocated many industrial compounds from the edge of town into areas of strategic growth for the re-valuation of the city. The abandoned historical industrial sites often established strong symbolic relations with the community and, thanks to their particular morphology, are characterized by a rich architectural environment creating convenient opportunities for functional renovation.

In the past, Kokaistudios has promoted, through several cultural events, the relevant role of these kinds of re-qualifications and as such have been invited from the early beginning to cooperate with the developers for the textile factory. Their initial work included surveying realistic possibilities of re-conversion of the sire and identifying the role that the project could play for the district and the city.