Star Camp Service Center / SEU-ARCH Art+Zen Architects

Curated by 韩双羽 - HAN Shuangyu

Architects: SEU-ARCH Art+Zen Architects
Area: 650 m²
Year: 2015
Photographs:Qiang Xia

Text description provided by the architects. Star Camp service center is located at Zhang Jia Jie National Forest Park. The terrain is tortuous, covered with sweeps of lawn, surrounded by thick forest and steep mountains. As the unique landscape is the core of the site, the essential factor of the design is the relationship between the building and landscape.

The function of star campus is a base of camping, field training and outdoor activities, the service center is to offer the necessary service and supporting facilities, such as bathing, quick meal, training and the store.

Star Camp Service Center / SEU-ARCH Art+Zen Architects - Image 8 of 21 — building and hills. Image © Qiang Xia

The start point of the design is to highlight the landscape topography changes with building form, while finding the balance between the building and scenery. The building unfolds with the site topography and height changes, the boxes are set on different platforms, and connected by function, just like the giant rocks in the mountains.

The total area of the building is just 650㎡，formed by three parts on different levels. Visitors can walk into the square in front of the building from the lawn, and enter the lobby and function hall. Moving along the one walking line can get to café and tea room, 1m higher, with a big outdoor platform connected with entrance square with stairs. The platform offers space of relaxing and viewing, as well as the transition space from the entrance square to the roof garden. Visitors can walk onto the roof along steps, and grasses are planted on the roof to offer camping space. 1m higher from the café is dressing room and other service space, also with outdoor platform connected to the entrance lawn, so that the bathing area can be using separately. The building itself can be climbed and connected to the outdoor, which is also a kind of hiding from natural.

These design strategies solve the function problem of the service center, and response to the topography, elevation difference and landscape. But in this specific site, how the building influence the landscape?

Before the building, people’s perception of landscape is single. Without the manual intervene, landscape is divergent in different directions. While in this project, we hope people can watch landscape by design factors and gain more communication and experience.

The service center of star camp try to integrated more site and landscape factors into the geometry construction system. The square, platforms, lawn steps and trees, enclose with brick walls, constructed new sequence relation, which enriched the landscape dimensions.

The volume at the main entrance, low walls separating platforms and landscape pond borders area geometry lines and surfaces planted into natural, which are integrated as an interface to the landscape, bring in the directivity and location sense. By the building, the specific view angle is settled, and interaction between men and natural is formed into more abstract landscape.

Furthermore, as the outside walk line of the building is guiding to the roof, the sight line of visitors is keep lifting, the scenery picture is changing with different levels. When standing on the grass roof, the lawn, platforms, red brick walls, keeping trees, as well as the distant mountain composed a land art picture, building and scenery is integrated on a higher dimension. “The most charming scenery is not the pure natural without any intervene, but the captured landscape, interacted appropriately with people”.