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Architects: XAUAT
- Area: 400 m²
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:Xiaoming Zhang
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Lead Architects: Bo Gao, Yiqiong Wang
The Original Appearance of The Dwelling. The dwelling is located in Bayi Village, Linwei District, Weinan City, Shaanxi Province. It was originally built around 2000 as a one-story flat-roofed building with a masonry structure with internal beams and structural columns. The safety inspection and identification of the dwelling structure showed that the safety performance of the building met the current code requirements, but due to years of no occupancy, there were problems such as water seepage from the roof, poor indoor ventilation and lighting, and mold on the interior walls. The owner wants to renovate and expand the dwelling, increase the functional units, continue the sloping roof form of the Guanzhong vernacular dwelling, retain the courtyard greenery, and control the construction cost.
Design Strategy. Through the structural inspection of the existing residence, the internal structural characteristics were grasped, and the principles of safety, adaptability, and economy of the additional structure were followed, and the mixed structure of "masonry + frame" was adopted for the second floor, in which the main body is a masonry structure with ring beams and structural columns to strengthen the structural rigidity; the glass brick wall part is reinforced concrete frame structure with flexible space division; the roof is a purlin system. The roof is a light steel structure with a purlin system, which greatly reduces the self-weight, and the uppermost layer is covered with mechanism red tiles.
Improve The Function of Living. The spatial distribution of the gated welling and the main dwelling is limited from south to north, with the front, middle and back courtyards. The front courtyard is used as a buffer area between the dwelling and the national road to meet the needs of parking and crop planting; the central inner courtyard is the main living area to meet the needs of daily rest, entertainment and scenery viewing, and the backyard is the storage and equipment pipe well-burying area. The renovated two-story apartments adopt a centralized layout of transportation space around the living function. On the first floor, the entrance door and sun corridor are set in the south direction, and the public spaces such as the living room, dining room, and bar are arranged in the center. The straight staircase on the west side provides vertical transportation to the second floor, which is an extended living room function and is arranged in an L-shape around the outdoor terrace according to the logic of the upper and lower floors. The south-facing sloping roof is equipped with solar photovoltaic panels to meet the daily electricity demand of the residence.
Application of Green Technology. The ecology and environment are closely related to the quality of life of the residents. The glass block dwelling focuses on the adaptive application of green and livable quality improvement technology for modern vernacular dwellings, with emphasis on the influence of local wind, light, water, and other natural factors on the dwellings, and copes with the changes in climate in all seasons.
Light and ventilation: the south-facing sunroom adopts large hollow glass blocks and long strip windows to maximize the light area; the upper part of the living room removes part of the original floor slab to add light and ventilation wells to improve indoor lighting while using thermal pressure to promote natural ventilation. The exterior windows are made of aluminum alloy frame and Low-E insulating glass, and the opening area is strictly controlled to facilitate natural ventilation in summer and to block the outside wind and cold in winter.
Noise and sound reduction: In order to solve the traffic noise problem of National Highway 108 which is adjacent to the south side of the residence, the bedrooms on the first and second floors of the residence are distributed on the north side, and the sunroom is set up as a space buffer in the south direction respectively, and hollow glass blocks with excellent sound insulation performance and high light transmission rate are used on the south-facing exterior wall in order to achieve good noise and sound reduction effect.
Heat preservation and insulation: The roof continues the form of the "boring roof" of Guanzhong traditional dwelling, which serves as a climate buffer in winter and summer, and plays the role of heat preservation and insulation for the main living space; the sunroom is installed on the south-facing exterior wall, and high-performance phase change heat storage materials are applied on the wall to absorb heat during the day and slowly release heat at night; the exterior walls of the bedroom and living room adopt internal heat preservation The external walls of bedrooms and living rooms are all made of internal thermal insulation to meet the demand for thermal insulation. Solar photovoltaic panels are laid on the roof to supply power for indoor graphene heating equipment, realizing zero-carbon heating for the whole dwelling.
Separation of rainwater and sewage: In order to realize the recycling of rainwater and the recharge of sewage treatment in the Guanzhong area, a rainwater purification system is set up on the east side of the central courtyard in combination with water features, which is eventually introduced into the reservoir to provide irrigation and landscape water for the courtyard; indoor bathrooms are connected to the three-format septic tank on the east side of the rear courtyard through pipes and discharged into the farmland on the north side after being purified by the ecological wetland; domestic sewage such as shower, laundry, and kitchen is discharged into the nearby The domestic sewage from shower, laundry, and kitchen is discharged into the three-cylinder sewage treatment pond on the west side of the backyard, and after purification, it is discharged into the cistern in the front yard through a pipe for irrigation of farmland.
New Model of Rural Dwellings. The use of low-cost technical means in rural weak economic areas and the economic investment in the overall function and performance of the residence are of great significance to the renovation and upgrading of existing residences in the northwest countryside. The native features of traditional settlements and vernacular dwellings are reflected in their site selection, orientation, plan layout, spatial combination, building materials, and structural treatment, reflecting people's thoughts and experiences in creating a good living environment according to the laws of nature. From design to construction, the Weinan Bayi Village Glass Brick dwelling focuses on Guanzhong vernacular context, materials, innovation, and technology, combines traditional construction techniques with modern architectural space design theory, reasonably uses and inherits the original material structure and structural system, creates a new model of Guanzhong vernacular housing, and through experiments and demonstration studies, gradually moves the vernacular housing to modern and green.
