Design: Parallect Design (Suzhou)
Contact e-mail: di.huang@parallect-design.com
Design year & Completion Year: 2019
Leader designer & Team Leader Designer: Xueyi Sun, Xueqi Chen, Nan Yang
Project location: Nanjing, Jiangsu
Gross Built Area (square meters): 300
Photo credits: Jieqi Yao
Clients: Slow Girl Rural Parkhouse
Partners: Suzhou Re-design Studio
About Parallect Design
Founded in the Netherlands in 2017, Parallect Design is a design office based in the Yangtze River Delta and the Netherlands. We are a team of designers, architecture and landscape is the main force, and we are also doing an exhibition, interior, and design research projects.
We believe that the words “design”, “plan” and “program” are synonymous, and the purpose is to “solve a specific problem through design strategies.”
We follow the user’s perspective, intervene in the design, and emphasize the real experience of the space. Focusing on aesthetics, functions, and sustainability, we constantly explore the potential of design and the potential needs of users. We also encourage multi-disciplinary cooperation to work together and achieve groundbreaking projects.
The project is located in Jiangning District, Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province, about 11.7 kilometers from the center ofJiangningDistrict, surrounded by farmland. There are two ponds in front and behind the project, you can also see the rolling mountains in the north, and enjoy the pastoral scenery.
The owners hope to use the abandoned houses to expand the boutique hotel, so as to create an idyllic residence on the edge of the city, to simply reproduce the idyllic lifestyle, without losing the pursuit of a high-quality living environment, so that people who have lived in the city for a long time can get a spiritual release in the natural landscape.
The original site is composed of a room of 21.6m long and 8.2m wide, with two front and rear courtyards. The design divides the original building plan equally from east to west, retains the original doors, windows, and structural beams, and forms three relatively independent living units, ensuring their independence and privacy. Therefore, they can be rented separately in operation.
The 5.3m story height of the original building provided an opportunity for the creation of the attic so that the design is able to go beyond the conventional suite pattern to have a unique room layout, which forms three spatial platforms at different heights: ground floor space, transitional space (reading area) and the attic space.
It greatly enriches the vertical space on experience. With the increase of space elevation, privacy is gradually enhanced. Each suite is for an intimate group, and we hope to create a platform and conditions for interpersonal interaction in this indoor space.
We tried to build the continuity and integrity of the space to break down the barriers of traditional indoor “room” restrictions. There is no fully enclosed functional space inside the building.
Instead of the “doors”, “not totally blocked” partition is designed: the bedroom can be glimpsed through the clothes stand in the dining area on the first floor; the bedroom and the reading area are separated by the original tree trunks to define the space while maintaining a certain degree of transparency of sight; the tatami style tea art area and sitting room can share scenery mutually.
On the east-west interface of the attic bedroom, we tried to create an “outdoor” state. The tent naturally camps in the field. You can imagine seeing the bright moon in the sky, sitting with your lover in the tent, overlooking the surrounding, and looking at the stars from the skylight at ease.
By controlling the opening and closing of the partition between the courtyards, the external landscape platform realizes the free transformation of the two space modes of “private rest” and “open party”, so as to realize the needs for diversified space and different amount of tenants.
Application of materials and rural elements: the swing at the entrance, the sofa hammock hanging by the rope represent the desire of returning to the countryside; the light gray art wall paint with mottled texture matches the old elm wood decoration, gauze curtain of the coping in the mensal area is hanged from a wooden frame, the whole building gives the rustic charm like being in the countryside, ethereal and leisured, simple and quiet. Simple materials were used to create an elegant and very recognizable space.
The outdoor landscape platform also continues the texture of the wooden door, and the black bricks are used to pave the floor and to build the hollow wall. The pavilion is covered with a Chinese alpine rush on the top and the tea seat woven with bamboo can be used for travel and rest.
At this time, we can look out into the distance to the faraway mountains, wisps of smoke rose continuously from the village chimneys and the water under our feet, which just corresponds to the poem: Temporarily leave the town for the countryside, outside cooking smoke hanging half ditch. Being in the clean rivers and green mountains, I enjoy this quietness and beauty.
The eaves at the entrance echo the Hui-style cornices of the original building, forming a sense of rhythm from top to bottom. The eaves at the entrance break through the monotonous and lack of changes in the facade, at the same time, providing visitors with signs and guiding functions. Combined with the built-in bathroom space, a concave grey space is constructed for the entrance to ensure good concealment.
Step onto the black brisk road, knock open the wooden door, savor simple but elegant and rustic charming the primitive world of logs and black bricks, in the meantime, enjoy the rural life and live condition that close to nature.
