Location: Songyang Damushan Tea Valley, Lishui, Zhejiang Province
Program: Tea House/ Tea Art Training
Client: Songyang Tourism Development Co., Ltd.
Architecture Design: DnA_ Design and Architecture
Principle Architect: Xu Tiantian
Design Team: Xu Tiantian, Zhang Longxiao, Zhou Yang
Interior Design: DnA_ Design and Architecture
Lighting Design: Zhang Xin Studio, Architecture Department of Tsinghua University (Zhang Xin, Han XIaowei, Zhou xuanyu)
Structure System: Shearing Wall
Gross Floor Area: 477.75m2
Building Foot Print: 372.83m2
Design Period: 2014.12-2015.01
Construction Period: 2015.02-2015.08
Completion Time: 2015.08
Photographers: Wang Ziling, Chen Hao, Zhou Yang

This is an area of the teahouse with a round window overlooking the water scenery and has a graveled flooring.

This is an area of the teahouse with a zen garden, a large room with glass walls and sliding glass doors and a large counter in the middle.

This is the other side of the large spacious room with a large bar counter in the middle that is paired with comfortable chairs.

This large room has multiple dining tables with a dark tone that matches the walls and balanced by the natural lighting that goes in from the glass walls and door on the far side.

This large area also has a large skylight above that also brings balance to the dark walls.

This room has a large glass wall on the far side across from the counter with a view of the water scenery outside.

This is a small room with atall ceiling that has a skylight. These are paired with a low table and a contrasting light hardwood flooring.

This is a view of the teahouse from the vantage of the water scenery. You can also see here the warm glow of the structures from its glass walls.

This is an illustrative representation of the first level floor plan.

This is an illustrative representation of the second level floor plan.

This is an illustrative representation of the side elevation.

With the success of the bamboo pavilion, Damushan Tourism Committee decided to build a new tea house on a linear sunken site facing a reservoir on its west side as an addition to a pre-existing long corridor pavilion.

The tea program is divided into two parts: a two-story space in the north and two private rooms in the south. The two-story space is designed to house major groups of visitors and faces a shaded plaza on its west with five phoenix trees next to the public walkway. Two private rooms are stretched across a private corridor and lean over the water edge.

This leaves a more secluded alley experience away from the public walkway, yet creates direct, open, and picturesque views for both private rooms, with individual abstract “zen” courtyards on the east to form a contrasting experience. The articulation of a dialogue between teahouse and nature will invite light, breeze, view, and reflection into this tea space, for visitors to contemplate the ephemerality of our nature. This teahouse at the center of the tea plantation is functioning as a temple of tea.

After the completion of the building, a young woman, Meng Xiaoxue, who grew up in a tea farmer family from this region started to operate this teahouse with new functions such as a teaching program as well as other cultural tea ceremonies. Her business soon expanded into innovative tea production. This teahouse is now the incubation for culture and economy in development.