Project Credits & Specs:
- Architects: WT Architects
- Photographs: Arch-Exist Photography, INSPACE, WT Architects, Architect Biao He
- Location: Baisha, Jiangjin District, Chongqing, China
- Area: 5000 m2
- Year: 2022
PROJECT CONCEPT
A Country Club to Release Nature
The project is located in the Jiangjin District of Chongqing, a typical southwest village in the hilly terrain. The site is the raw material planting base of liquor production.
Joybo is popular, especially with the younger fashion group of people. Their interests are turning slightly to the countryside. We create a new atmosphere in the old environment using modern design methods, to encourage people to come not just change the physical environment but also change the inner world, release nature, and enjoy.
OVERALL MASTERPLAN
Island Hopping Village
One small stream flows into a main river, with several peninsulas sitting alongside. We choose to locate architecture and functional areas on these peninsulas, to create a special route like ‘Island Hopping’, which brings an exchanging experience from different unique scenes.
There is no preconception about what a country is supposed to look like, however, we focus on which type of space form fits these peninsulas best, to talk with the natural environment with the most original geometric form of space.
PROJECTS
LAND MUSEUM
A Concrete Barn in the Sorghum Field
This is a pitch roof cast-in-place concrete building sitting horizontally and steadily in the sorghum fields. Use the modern way of design to inherit the spirit of the countryside rather than the similarity in the shape of the surface.
Respect for Agriculture
Across the curved concrete wall and a 2 meters clear height space, the spiritual route axis facing the triangle front face of the building creates a solemn feeling.
A 3 levels height space comes first when entering the museum, on the upper space diagonal lines converge to the sky, to welcome the sunlight coming in; in the lower space, circular sunken space goes into the land step by step, both to awaken the revere of agriculture.
Stone curtain walls, balconies, sky windows, terraces, concrete curtain walls, and other design languages create a wealth of variation in the space from the inside out. To let people have the experience of keeping touching the external natural world even when they walk inside the building.
Materials and Construction of the Musem
Cast-in-place concrete with wood texture has both a natural feeling and solemn modernity, which is the best choice to inherit the plain temperament of the land through the modern way of architecture.
LAND TAVERN
Four Directional Wooden House
The Land Tavern is a space where people spend most of their time to stay. The architecture mass talks to the environment and sight relationship of the four directions directly. Separate a cross vertically into two parts, a half external space goes through the bottom from east to west, and the south body extends along the river to bring in more sunlight.
Elevated Space and Sunken Garden
One-half external space on the ground floor goes from east to west and connects the entrance with a cafe, bar, stairs, and a sunken garden at the end of the peninsula. Two groups of V-shaped columns create a beautiful dining atmosphere together with shade control and ventilation from the space. The sunken garden is surrounded by water which provides the possibility of a barbecue in the summer and a campfire in the winter.
Slate stacked on top of each other forms the seats of the sunken garden, and wild grass grows in between creating a strong feeling of nature.
The overlap of two parts is where two floors connect, one round patio sits just at the cross on the roof, bringing in the light, rain, and sky.
Material and Construction of the Land Tavern
Different from the Land Museum’s purpose to reflect plain and solemnity, the Land Tavern’s position as “a wooden tavern in the country”, talks more about how to close to agriculture.
The lower part chooses a lighter color to provide variety and makes the lower body looks lighter, while the upper part chooses to be darker, as a black floating silhouette in the countryside. The wood curtain wall has a variable bump and vertical fins, to strengthen the texture of the wood and decrease the oppressive feeling that the mass brings to the countryside.