Background
With a opportunity for street reconstruction, this project needs to design two accesses to tea room, and three courtyard as a reception hall, a VIP tea room, and the contemplate garden. The site is located at corner of street, form a long and narrow area with 20-meter length and 55-meter width.
Drinking tea is a Chinese tradition, especially in southwest region. Classical tea rooms provide a busy and multiple-functional space in which people can drink tea, chat or play table games. Modern tea rooms meet various needs of communication, sociality, and mobile officing. They absorb the method of “Zen” from Japan and the coffee culture from the West. They focus on creating a quiet environment, as well as relaxation and enjoyment in spirit.
Highlights
A. This project can reduce the cost of water usage through its ecological circulation and avoid excessive use of air conditioning in Chongqing, in which the temperature in summer may reach to 40 degree Celsius.
B. Learning from Chinese traditional gardening techniques, it forms a “big from small” space system where you can enjoy taking a stroll and feel spacious in this limited courtyard.
The project practices implantation of subculture and creates an environment of nature and tradition, by using local plants and and reference for residential courtyard in southwest of China.
Challenges and Strategies
Upon this situation, the project meets challenges from three aspects.
I. Ecology
i. Challenge:
1. How to use the cooling method with low cost and how to reduce the usage of air conditioners, consumption of energy, pollution of air, due to the climate of scorching temperature in Chongqing?
2. How to use the ecological method to reduce the cost of water operation?
ii. Strategies:
1.1 To set a water wall (or a fall) facing to the entrance of reception hall; to reduce temperature by flowing water, which also makes sound of stream to mitigate people’s irritation during summer.
1.2 To utilize shallow pond and spraying device to reduce hours of using air conditioner in tea room through .
2.1 To reduce artificial water refill maximally, by build-in devices, like rain collector and sand filter, and vegetated bioswale and water wall in reception hall.
II. Space
i. Challenge:
1. How to reduce the feeling of cramp in this narrow space and build a “big from small” area?
2. How to shield visual interference from surrounding old communities?
ii. Strategies:
1.1 To extend line of motion accessing to reception hall by winding path, and to increase walking period of peripheral space, making people forget the chaos of old city.
1.2 To refer to the layouts of Garden of Master of Nets, a world cultural heritage site in Suzhou, China on designing entrance of reception hall, to link three courtyards with a circular pattern, to use different ways to access to the garden, such as bridges, stepping stones, and surrounding views.
1.3 To divide this narrow site into three courtyards to break the oppression, and to increase interaction between spaces thorough the vertical windows on high wall.
2.1 To restrict people’s view in courtyards with the high wall and all standing veranda, and to plant arbors on people’s space focus by visual line analysis to hide external negative factors.
2.2 To block the negative view for tea room through municipal street trees.
III. Culture
i. Challenges
1. How to embody the tea room’s name – “orchid garden” ?
2. How to create a quiet environment and make people feeling with “Zen” culture?
ii. Strategies
1.1 To point out the name of tea room with orchid on the north and south walls of reception hall. To form a Chinese wash painting with the orchid intaglio print on north side with flagstone and ground cover; to compare the myrtle tree, growing from the stream in the southern side, to a quiet forest.
1.2 To define an elegant atmosphere, also show that orchid is a symbol of clear things in China.
2.1 To grow arbor trees in every courtyard. They illustrate changing in seasons, inspire people to perceive time lapse, and represent a Chinese taste and auspicious meaning; they have special fragrance which may calm people down.
2.2 To choose gray for hard landscape to capture lights and shadows with this soft and neutral colour and to make the space more luxuriant, profound and calm.
2.3 To plant bamboos on the path of east entrance. The shape of bamboo, the sound of wind and the traditional metaphor of bamboo to gentlemen could motivate people to forget annoyance from city.
2.4 To bring people to another realm of dim space, rushing water and overflowing steam in the cave-like reception hall with a wide ceiling, as people come from the elevator.
2.5 The contemplative garden increase emptiness of courtyard though using black bottom of the pool. The round island offers more communication areas and becomes the center of the space, which provides a Zen environment. The bridge, veranda and picture of flowers could bring you to an ancient garden that Chinese scholars desire.
Project category：Hospitality
Role of the entrant in the project：The Design Company
Other designers involved in the design of landscape: Zhang Zhang, Zhe Li, Jianhua Zhang, Tianjiao Wei, Xiaoxue Deng, Peng Chen, Jun Zheng, Shuai Xing, Xiaomin Zhang, Xiaoyan Guo
Project location：Yubei District, Chongqing, China
Design year：2018
Year Built：2018
