Text        Info

Canton House


Location: Wuchuan, Guangdong, China
Function: House
Surface: 240 sq.m
Date: 2016-2019
Mission: Architecture, Landscape, Interior
Client: Parents
Designer: Ziyu TANG, Aiping ZHANG
The project is located in the village of Wuyang Town in western Guangdong. The owners are the parents of the architect. They hope to build a self-built house on the original homestead that can accommodate the parents and two families of brothers, while following the rural Feng Shui and customs. It is destined that the project is not a country villa, but a family house with sacrificial function at the same time.

The project follows the layout principle of the local traditional houses with Three-Bay-Two-Corridors. The central position of the limited site is a three-story height "Ming Hall" with sacrificial function. The so-called "Ming Hall" refers to the hall without a door in the local traditional houses, which is directly connected to the patio. Entering through the narrow corridor, its towering and huge feel are amplified. Non-Daily scale make the concept of “honoring our ancestors and continuous blood” to be reflected in this highly symbolic and redundant space. Due to the short stay time at home, the two families of brothers are in the form of a small single suite, which is arranged in the east and west side of the second floor according to the principle of elder and younger. The parents' bedroom and other daily functional rooms also follow the "Feng Shui" layout and revolve around the "Ming Hall".

The four courtyards juxtaposed with the Ming Hall produce two different atmosphere spaces through different combinations of railings or gables on the second floor: a bright courtyard or a shaded patio, planted with sun-loving or shade-tolerant plants respectively. The Ming Hall is tall and redundant; the space around the courtyard is held relatively low, with the meaning of cornice. The different atmosphere of space high and low, the alternation of light and dark, resulting in profound beauty.
The floor slab adopts the structural form of Inverted beam, The floor slab edge coincides with the wall edge, does not interlace with each other, and the space contour is clear. The floor slab and the wall are visually independent, creating a sense of horizontal and vertical extension respectively. Further, on the ground floor, through the hidden drainage system, the elevation difference between indoor and outdoor is eliminated, and the same material of indoor and outdoor ground enhances the fluidity of space.

Under the cornice on the second floor, the railings near air position are transformed into stools, and the floor-to-ceiling sliding windows of the bedrooms on the second floor are further furniture. When we open the window, people can sit indoors while swinging their feet outside. The railing becomes a table for drinking tea and reading, these treatments all try to eliminate the opposition between indoor and outdoor, which is the response of basic architecture elements to the aesthetic taste of “Profound”.

Light and dark, high and low, dry and wet, space is dually treated, so that the temperature difference generates airflow, the whole house has a sense of cool breeze. Especially the two shaded patios are the favorite places for workers to stay during construction.
General plan
Ground floor plan
2nd Floor plan
3nd Floor plan
Section