중국 허베이성 탕산 코트야드 빌라(Courtyard Villa), Architectural form derived from traditional Chinese courtyard dwellings 2

중정을 가운데 두고 4개의 서로 다른 방향성을 지닌 공간의 절묘한 배치가 돋보여

중국 허베이성에 동부에 있는 광공업도시 탕산에 265㎡ 규모의 아담한 빌라가 들어섰다. 빌라 주변은 강과 과수원, 농지로 둘러싸여 있고 새로 지어진 건물은 레저와 휴가를 위한 공간으로 활용된다. 빌라가 들어서기 전에는 전형적인 목조 가옥이 들어서 있었고 서쪽에는 곡물 가공 공장이 있다.

설계를 맡은 아크스튜디오는 중정을 두고 건물이 마주 보는 방식을 취하는 중국의 전통 건축양식(사합원)을 토대로 기본 개념을 잡았다. 중정을 중심에 두고 각각의 공간이 중심성을 가지듯 빌라는 거실과 식당이 가운데 자리하고, 주인침실, 게스트룸, 주방, 스터디를 포함한 4개의 공간이 서로 다른 방향성을 띠며 배치되어 있다. 중정의 역할을 하는 가운데 영역의 상부에는 지붕을 씌우고 라운지 형태의 개방적인 커다란 홀이 되었다. 4개의 직방형 공간은 모두 안쪽으로 향해 있는 구조며 각각의 실에는 마당이 있다. 서로 다른 규모의 마당은 주변 환경과 적절히 교감하며 내부에 풍성한 흐름을 이어주며, 테라스를 포함함으로써 접근성과 활용도가 높다. 건물 구조는 스틸 프레임과 콘크리트 슬래브로 콘크리트 슬래브와 목재 프레임을 노출시켜 재료의 질감을 극대화하고 있다. 빌라 전체를 치장하고 있는 점토 벽돌은 자연과 잘 조화를 이루고 있다. 이처럼 코트야드 빌라는 전원에 들어선 대지 특성을 효과적으로 활용하고 중정을 활용한 안정적이면서도 개방적인 배치로 거주공간의 프라이버시는 물론 개방성을 극대화하고 있다. ANN

Han Wenqiang_ Chief designer

Jiang Zhao, Hu Bo_ Architectural & interior design

자료_ ARCHSTUDIO, Photos by Wang Ning

The project is situated on a flat site in the suburbs, which is surrounded by orchards, farmland and rivers, boasting beautiful landscape. On the west side is a grain processing factory, which is an enclosed architecture with pitched roofs designed by ARCHSTUDIO in previous years. There was originally a wooden house on the site, with a typical structure commonly seen a decade ago. To improve the quality of space, the house owner decided to demolish it and build a new architecture on the site. The newly built house mainly functions as a leisure and vacation space, serving for not only living but also receiving guests.

The design concept is derived from courtyard dwellings (Siheyuan), a kind of traditional Chinese residence. Siheyuan has an inward-facing architectural structure, with buildings arranged around a central courtyard. The exterior of Siheyuan is closed, while the interior courtyard is completely open, which offers little privacy for the occupants. Based on site conditions and the main functions of the project, ARCHSTUDIO decided to construct the house by borrowing and transforming the architectural pattern of traditional Siheyuan. The design team arranged four rooms on different sides in a scattered way, added a roof to the "courtyard" and turned it into a hall, and made the exteriors of the hall transparent and open, thereby letting the hall blend with the pleasant outdoor scenery, and ensuring the privacy of individual living spaces and openness for reception activities.

The entire architecture is based on the pedestal, with the four rooms independently set on four corners, together outlining the boundary of the house. The four rooms are all inward-facing, and each of them contains a yard inside. With different scales, those yards bring landscape and natural light into the interior. The house consists of private living areas and service spaces, including bedrooms, study, kitchen, and equipment room, all of which are separate from one another to avoid interference. The four rooms jointly support a pitch roof, under which is a flexible public area for accommodating various activities such as reception, dining and piano playing. Thanks to transparent glass windows and doors, public activities can be extended to the outdoor terraces on four sides, where people can enjoy the refreshing greenery.

ARCHSTUDIO well handled the relationship among space, structure and materials, and tried to present the natural beauty of materials based on the characteristics of rural leisure space. The four rooms use steel framework and concrete slabs, with the wooden formwork of the in-situ concrete slabs exposed in the interior spaces. Beige shale bricks were utilized to construct the walls. The walls are composed of two vertical layers of bricks, with a thermal insulation layer in between, which improves the thermal performance, ensures identical material texture of the interior and exterior brick walls, and hides framework as well as pipes and wires of equipment. In the inner yards, large areas of the brick walls leave hollows, hence allowing natural air ventilation and light penetration. Pedestal surfaces, either inside or outside, are also paved with beige bricks. The pitched roof of the public area adopts wooden ribbed beams, with the rooftop clad in charred wood tiles. The combination of wood and bricks produces an austere, warm and natural interior ambience. In addition, the fireplace, dining table and piano further identify different public activity areas.

>>ARCHSTUDIO Established in 2010 and based in 798 Art Zone, Beijing, ARCHSTUDIO advocates maintaining a harmonious balance among human, nature, history and commerce in design practices, pursues the essence and true way of design, controls the whole process from concept to construction, and strives to create quality and emotional spatial environment that is based on the contemporary era and embraces future. Currently, the Studio mainly focuses on architectural design in natural context, urban architecture renovation & transformation, and upgrade of consumption space, etc. Space is an aggregation of various relationships. During design practices, ARCHSTUDIO insists on the principle of “design of relationships”, analyzes reality of uncertainties, and coordinates relations between the large and small, exterior and interior, the new and old, the artificial and natural, etc. Besides, it works to create forms according to physical objects, produce spatial ambience for the mind, evoke interaction between the space and physical behaviors and enable infinite space perception, thereby to enhance spirit and experiences of the space. In 2015, ARCHSTUDIO was honored as one of the 10 Design Vanguards by the renowned American magazine Architectural Record. And from 2015 to 2019, it has been included in China’s AD100 list consecutively from 2015 to 2019, which recognizes it as one of China's top 100 talents in architecture and design. Awards: LEAF Awards, Architizer A+Awards，Wood Design & Building Design Awards, Interior Design’s Best of Year Awards, ArchDaily’s Building of The Year Awards, ASC Architectural Design Awards, WA Awards for Chinese Architecture (shortlisted), TID Award (Gold Award), Asia Pacific Interior Design Awards (Gold Award), etc. Exhibitions: “Contemporary Architecture in China” at Harvard, 10x100 — An Exhibition of 100 Architects for the 10th Anniversary of UED, The Gwangju Design Biennale in South Korea, Milan Design Week, Beijing Design Week Theme Exhibition, etc.

>>Han Wenqiang Associate Professor, School of Architecture of CAFA (Central Academy of Fine Arts), Founder & Chief Architect, ARCHSTUDIO. Han Wenqiang was born in Dalian, Liaoning, China. He got a master’s degree in School of Architecture of CAFA in 2005 and since then has been teaching there. In his design practices and researches, he advocates observing and reflecting on physical environment with traditional wisdom, insists on a basic view that “space is a medium”, takes “design of relationships” as an important approach, creates forms based on physical objects, produces spatial ambience for the mind, and strives to achieve harmony and balance among human, nature, history, culture, commerce and space. His representative works mainly include Waterside Buddhist Shrine, Tea House in Hutong, Organic Farm, Twisting Courtyard, etc. He was a winner of Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard Competition in 2015 and Perspective’s 40 UNDER 40 Awards (Architecture category) in 2017. Besides, he has been included in the AD100 list consecutively from 2015 to 2019, which recognizes him as China’s top 100 talents in architecture and design.

Location: Tangshan, Hebei, China, Site area: 820㎡, Project area:265㎡, Main materials: brick, wood, glass, Design firm: ARCHSTUDIO (www.archstudio.cn), Chief designer: Han Wenqiang, Architectural & interior design: Jiang Zhao, Hu Bo

Structural design: Zhang Yong, Electrical & plumbing design: Zheng Baowei, HVAC, consultation: JAGA, Photography: Wang Ning, Text: Han Wenqiang