Villa Shizilin, Beijing, 2004

The client is a developer couple with two children and they have acquired a piece of land in the adjacency of the Ming Tombs outside Beijing to build a house with extensive programs from cinema to indoor swimming pool and with the intention to use the facilities also as a club.

The building site used to be an orchard for persimmon trees surrounded by mountains. To fully engage the sceneries in the area, the architecture design takes the rangefinder as concept and nine tapered spaces are oriented towards nine different views. The roofs slope to complete these perspectival rooms while to interpret the traditional Chinese architectural forms in a topological way. By the same token, a rolling artificial landscape is created on the rooftop which echoes the hilly terrain nearby. The structure of the building is a concrete sheer wall and beam system with local granite clad on the outside of the walls and dark cement tiles on the roofs. The existing persimmon trees are preserved to punctuate the house.

Project Name: Villa Shizilin

Architect: Atelier Feichang Jianzhu

Project Designer: Yung Ho CHANG / WANG Hui

Consultants: XU Minsheng (structural consultant)

Project Team: WANG Xin, JIN Yong, ZHONG Peng, YU Lu, DAI Changjing ect.

Client: Antaeus Group.

Location: Wan Niang Fen, Changping, Beijing

Design Period: 2001.6–2003.6

Construction Period: 2003.6–2004.5

Building Area: 4800 sq. meters

Site Area: 200100 sq. meters

Construction Material: Concrete and stone load bearing wall, exposed concrete ceiling, concrete tile roof, terrazzo floor, Corten-steel veneer

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