Client: DRAGON TV
Architect: URBANUS
Location: The 18 Shang Meng Sheng Street of the Guangzhou Meng Sheng Community
Design: 2018.4~7
Construction: 2018.7~10
Site Area: 27.9m2
Floor Area: 96.4 m2
Building Levels: 4 floors
Building Height: 12.7m
Building Function: Housing
Principal Architect: Meng Yan
Project Architect: Jiang Qingzhou
Team: Zhang Chaoxian
(LDI) Structure/ MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing):
Beijing Century Peak International Architecture Design Co., Ltd.
China Building Design Consultants, Shenzhen
Photographers: Zhang Chao, Meng Yan, Jiang Qingzhou, Zhang Chaoxian

This is a close look at the simple living room that has a gray sofa paired with a white coffee table and a lamp.

The side of the sofa is the small foyer with a large brown main door with a glass panel on the side and a staircase.

This is a look down the foyer from the vantage of the staircase landing showcasing the dark flooring tiles.

This is a close look at the staircase with wooden steps and a large window on the side.

This is a close look at the staircase showcasing its wooden steps and a view of the foyer and landing.

This is a look at the small window on the side of the staircase that brings in natural lighting.

This is another look at the staircase that has bright white elements complemented by the wooden steps.

After the sofa of the living room area is the dining area that has a built-in wooden table with a wall-mounted TV above.

This is the modern kitchen that has a long and narrow design with modern white cabinetry.

The modern white bedroom has white walls, built-in structures and a hardwood flooring to contrast the white bed at the far corner.

This small room has a white cushioned platform bed at the corner by the window with a small side table.

This is the other view of the bedroom that has white walls and ceiling as well as a glass wall brightened by the windows.

Here you can see the bed on the far corner by the wide window topped with a large flush mount lighting.

This is a children's bedroom with a white bunk bed and built-in study desk to the cabinet that contrasts the blue walls and ceiling.

This is a look at the staircase painted with a bright salmon color that pairs well with the white staircase.

This is a closer look at the bright salmon tone of the walls complemented by the small windows.

This is a close look at a stairs landing with a reading nook by the window.

This bedroom has a built-in platform bed with structures on the side and windows on both sides.

This is a the top floor landing with hardwood flooring, white walls and glass windows.

This is the bright area with glass walls separating the interior with the rooftop patio.

This is a look at the surrounding view from the vantage of the top floor balcony.

This is a view of the alleyway that leads to the main entrance of the house.

This is an aerial view of the house and how it stands out against the surrounding neighborhood.

This is an illustration of the house's site map depicting its location within the number of surrounding structures.

This is an illustration of the north and west elevations of the house.

This is an illustration of the south and east elevations of the house.

This is an illustration of the east and north axonometric diagram of the house.

This is an illustration of the south and west axonometric diagram of the house.

This is a list of the various sections of the house.

This is an illustration of the house's cross section elevation.

This is an illustration of the house's cross section elevation showcasing the stairs.

This is an illustration of the section of the house showcasing the different materials used.

This is an illustration of the first level floor plan with annotations.

This is an illustration of the first level floor plan.

This is an illustration of the second level floor plan.

This is an illustration of the third level floor plan.

This is an illustration of the first to fourth level floor plan.

This is an illustration of the fourth level floor plan.

Before Renovation

Serene Residence in a Bustling City：

The Renovation of a Little House in a Historical Neighborhood of Guangzhou

The Mengsheng Community in the Haizhu District of Guangzhou got its name out of the saying that the descendants of Mengtian, a legendary general of the Qin Dynasty (221B.C-207B.C), resided here. The project is located on Upper-Mengsheng Street, a long and winding alleyway. The original house was a three-story brick and concrete structure that the owner built in 1985 with merely 22 square meters floor area on a single story. It is closely surrounded by its neighboring buildings.

The east side of the house brushes against the exterior wall of the adjacent house, while the north and west sides have a spacing of 90 and 30 centimeters with neighboring houses. The 80 -a centimeter-wide alley in the south, which barely allows two people to walk past each other, is the only passage that leads to the entrance. In addition to being small, compressed, dark, and inconveniently close to the neighboring houses, the building also has poor thermal performance with underlying structural dangers. These issues are always typical in the process of regeneration in old city quarters.

The renovation plan started from the interior, aiming to reorganize the vital functions of daily life within the limited space. The operation of carving through the floor plates enables the integration of the whole building and creates interlocking living spaces. Skylights are introduced on the top floor to allow light in the building.

Thus the dark and light spaces, openings and enclosures, are manipulated to make the tiny interior feel much more spacious. The construction started with the reinforcement of the overall structure. The original steep, single-run stair was replaced by a comfortable double-flight one as a device to rearrange vertical circulation. There is an individual bathroom on each floor. The customized light scoops on the north and south walls bring additional skylight to the dark ground floor.

Carefully designed viewing windows at various positions on the walls not only usher in natural light to each floor but also bring outside views inside. On the top fourth floor, there is a transparent small room and a terrace that overlooks the surrounding city. It is intended to be an open space flexible for various activities as admiring the moon, having tea, or contemplating.

A house should not only accommodate people, but also their spirit and dreams. Though this house is tiny, it provides a unique feeling of serenity over the hustle and bustle of the metropolis. The stroll through the dark and narrow alley into the building can be a reminder of an excerpt from the Chinese literary classic, The Peach Colony, that tells a story of a fisherman’s discovery of an “Arcadia” at the end of a grove of peach trees: “At first the opening was very narrow, barely wide enough for one person to go in.”

After walking through the alley that is illuminated by only a beam of the narrowly constrained skylight, eventually “it opened into a flood of light ”. Here, while one ascends from the ground floor of the building to the top, he gradually emerges from darkness into brightness, and his feelings would rise from repression to a sense of release. This experience is akin to that of the fisherman, thus the building can be seen as the reconstruction of a “vertical Peach Colony”.

Small pieces of maroon stone with natural grains are chosen for the exterior wall of the house since their color matches with the surrounding old buildings. As time passes, the overall texture of the wall will enable the house to be further integrated into the surrounding environment. After the renovation, the building still takes on a low-key stance in the neighborhood, while provides a welcoming respite for its owners in the bustling city.

This small, single-family house of merely 80 square meters is a tiny cell that composes the old city fabric of Guangzhou. As an example of the city’s micro-regeneration process, this project has a unique cultural ambition for the revival of the historical clusters within the city. It undertakes resistance and provides an alternative option that opposes the prevailing tabula rasa model of urban renewal.