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Architects: ZhiXing Architects
- Area: 3313 m²
- Year: 2019
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Photographs:Yuanxiang Chen
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Manufacturers: Foshan Lidu Doors And Windows Co., Ltd., Hunan Naimei Flooring Engineering Co., Ltd., Wanxing Building Materials Co., Ltd.
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Lead Architects: Kai Chen, Ziqiao Zhou
HuangSang. The project is located in the Huangsang National Nature Reserve at the junction of the northern slope of Danan Mountain and the southern foot of Xuefeng Mountain in Basili, southwest of Hunan Province. The towering ancient trees and clear streams all reflect the originality and simplicity of the scenic area. Our site is in the countryside surrounded by mountains. The original building has been demolished for many years. The existing site is distributed in a narrow north-south direction with a length of about 160 meters and an east-west width of about 35 meters. The total area is about 10 acres. The site is high in the north and south in the bottom and gradually descends gradually. The overall height difference is about 4 meters. It faces the stream in the east and faces the road. It is a typical mountainous landform in Hunan.
Position Before Design. The owner is local. He hopes that the project will not only meet the needs of urban residents for homestay culture and natural life, but also introduce the beautiful treasures of his hometown to more external friends. Under this beautiful vision, we and the host have discussed and studied the function of the host family and its subsequent operations many times, and finally determined the positioning of the host family in the main directions of regionalization, diversity, experience and audience. This deduces the specific functions and spaces needed for the design, namely the courtyard room, lounge, multi-functional lawn, fireplace experience, independent dining room, mountain pool, etc., which leads to expectations for better management.
Nature and Man-made. Huangsang Township showed us the picture: dense forests, turbulent seas, creeks, blue tile wooden houses, slab paths, without the need for extra decoration, it is the unique beauty of the local area. The location of the project here brings us expectations and reflections on the relationship between artificial and natural and the artificial environment.
Facing nature and tradition, the purpose of the design is to respect the status quo of the original plot and the connection to the original lifestyle. Based on the natural shape, it follows the traditional natural village pattern, embodies the beauty of no design, and responds to a series of basic problems caused by site location and functional requirements with the most essential architectural features.
Watch and Be watched. The design divides the public building and the guest room building into multiple buildings based on typology and arranges them to zero to reduce the huge volume brought by the large area. The final design layout is the most appropriate design result after trying many possibilities. Each building is vertical or parallel in the site, and the scale and arrangement of the buildings echo the surrounding natural villages.
The guest room buildings are arranged deeper in the venue because of their privacy. The first floor looks towards the guest house courtyard, and the second floor overlooks the distant mountain landscape. The main faces are north-south, with the solid mountain wall and the courtyard wall facing the east road, To maximize privacy while ensuring privacy.
The large-scale lobby building and restaurant building face the east road with open faces, emphasizing the openness of public space and also highlighting the main interface of the homestay area. Together with the other halls such as the foyer, firewood gate, and corridor, they were viewed by the mainline of sight from the highway, showing the overall settlement.
A walk-in Village. Entering Chaimen from the stone bridge across the brook, the circuitous design of the streamline allows visitors to change their sights between distant mountains, lanes, and courtyards. In the space, it is to create a village tour with different scenery and winding paths. The building is backed by mountains and valleys, surrounded by lush trees, and the distant mountains are beautiful. The brooks are adjacent to each other. At different times, through different windows, they are different landscapes, and they are all-natural paintings of frameless mountains.
The roofs of each building are staggered, and the corridors are connected. If the building grows from the mountain, it fits the site in the most local way and appears in the landscape.
Material and Construction. Due to the hot and humid climate in Hunan in the winter and cold in summer, we have designed two upper and lower space spaces: roof overhead heat insulation layer and ground overhead moisture barrier to maximize the comfort of the building in a low-tech and low-cost manner. The building is constructed from a sloping roof, and the materials are mainly gray bricks and tiles, which conceal the nature and continue the traditional life and context. Although for other reasons, the ridgeline and the decorative symbols of the local Hmong architecture have been added to the roofline, it has also become very inclusive due to the use of traditional materials, which has not affected our expected visual purity. The change of brickwork and the splicing of wood, the building of stones and the tiling of tiles are all organic combinations of materials and forms, and they are the embodiment of local life.
Epilogue. It took nearly three years from the beginning of the design to the formal operation of the B & B, and the total time far exceeded our expectations. This has allowed us to accumulate a wealth of experience and lessons for non-professional construction projects in rural conditions. Thank the owners for their full trust in the design. In front of the built time in use, we are constantly reviewing the design process, and we are more and more determined to choose the original design strategy.
