The project is a three-story townhouse located in a residential area in the eastern suburbs of Beijing. The first floor and the basement are a connected space which is used to receive visitors. The second floor is for daily living, it has separate entrances and exits.
The basic concept of the design is to use the changes of material and space to blur the boundary between indoor and outdoor, and the relationship among interfaces, to create an open environment rich in layers, thus to make the interior space get rid of limited decoration, and return to a natural, simple, quiet and oriental living atmosphere.
The design of the first floor is developed around living room and study room, oak grille and shelves are used to meet requirements of book collecting, exhibition and display, and to create a sense of layer of semitransparent from outside to inside. The tea room use gray cement paint combined with custom-made concrete counter top and table top, in this way the contrast of grey box and the background will result in space experience of different scales. The same technique is used in the design of living room and bedroom. For the basement floor the designer reintegrates the relationship between sunken garden and the interior space, bamboo forest in the courtyard creates landscape interactions between interior views and outdoor views. The underground garage has been turned into a bright guest room. “Dome” is used in the living area of the second floor to soften the relationship between the roof and the wall, which makes the interior space soft and full of change.
