This project is a residential renovation of an original villa featuring one underground floor and two above-ground levels. Situated in a neighborhood of similar units, it serves as an independent home. Besides the family residence, the property includes two studios dedicated to creative work. The design aims to establish a private world within the modern city, fostering inner peace and freedom. It expresses the authenticity of architecture and nature through the use of solid wood and metal materials, while harmonizing functionality and comfort throughout the building.
▲ Night aerial view
Building Envelope
The design strategy involves enclosing the entire site and existing structures within a massive ‘building envelope.’ This approach merges architecture with courtyard, and indoor with outdoor spaces, integrating elements such as trees and natural light to create a cohesive yet distinctive environment. The space transforms dynamically, extending from underground to above ground and breaking the original base into multiple courtyards. This multidimensional spatial composition enriches the residential lifestyle, offering diverse and tangible living patterns.
▲ Aerial view
An Independent World
Within this independent world, space flows freely, reminiscent of abstract landscapes. The geometric landscape imagery moves fluidly from bottom to top and side to side, adapting to different contexts. As you walk through, you experience the freedom and relaxation offered by the new structure. Here, architecture is unconstrained, expanding life’s possibilities beyond what was possible before renovating the vacant land. This continuous space creates multidimensional zones, with gray transitional areas blending indoor and outdoor environments, adding layered spatial qualities and nurturing rich spatial dynamics. These fluctuations and controlled lighting allow residential spaces to be both distinct and interconnected, enabling seamless transitions between spatial fragments and enriching everyday life. Human existence is inherently uncertain, which brings depth and variety. This independent world is not isolated or lonely; it is a self-contained system filled with rich content that enables inner freedom and peace.
▲ Courtyard views
Unity Between Interior and Exterior
Architecture here is not merely about creating enclosed spaces or external forms; it is about cultivating places rich in meaning where interior and exterior blend seamlessly. The residence aligns the floors, walls, and ceilings of the original building with the external structure, separated by only a single glass layer for thermal insulation, striving for harmony inside and out. This unity allows indoor spaces to intimately embrace nature, letting natural light and scenery flow unobstructed. Every space is symbiotic with nature; seasonal changes directly influence interior colors and ambiance. Thus, interior decoration is minimal, focusing only on essential functions and materials. The home is a structure nestled within the natural environment, providing shelter without losing its vital connection to nature. The robust ‘outer shell’ merges all elements, blurring the boundaries between natural and artificial realms, creating new dimensions that transcend nature itself. Architecture acts as a bridge connecting humans and nature, rather than isolating them.
▲ Autumn courtyard and outdoor staircase
Exploring Dimensional Boundaries
The ‘boundaries’ here refer to the spatial limits that influence comfort perception. Within the building, ceiling heights vary between 2.1 and 2.3 meters, and walkways can be as narrow as 0.7 meters—limits that might feel oppressive but actually heighten architectural awareness. The design brings architecture physically close to the body, similar to well-fitted clothing, offering familiarity, calmness, and relaxation. These tactile spaces allow occupants to sense the material reality of the building, fostering trust in the care embedded within the architecture.
▲ Studio spaces
Seeing the Big in the Small
This design blurs the lines between beginnings and ends, creating an endless flow of continuous space and infinite possibilities within a limited area. Similar to traditional gardens, it dissolves the boundary between architecture and landscape through an inseparable spatial structure. From underground to sky, from entrance hall to inner chambers, the vast ‘building envelope’ divides the courtyard into distinct ‘sub-courtyards’ around the original building. Each sub-courtyard forms its own system, interconnected with indoor spaces. Some courtyards dip below ground level, resonating with basement areas and forming unique spatial features. Each courtyard represents a self-contained world—quiet yet powerful.
▲ Courtyard views
▲ Sunken courtyard
Continuity and Transformation of Space
The interior features rooms of various sizes tailored to site and function, maintaining independence yet interconnected. Prefabricated concrete slabs, folded steel plate stairs, and branching steel ramps create a continuous, precise pathway only 70cm wide. The stairs, as thin and light as origami, avoid structural excess while maintaining elegance. These pathways cross sunken courtyards, float over water surfaces, navigate around trees, nestle between buildings, and ascend edges, forming a flexible route that transcends diverse atmospheres. This spatial journey offers rich, tangible experiences, akin to scene changes in a film, intertwining body and nature. Ultimately, the body itself is part of nature.
▲ Courtyard views
Authenticity of Materials
The building primarily uses solid wood and aluminum panels, creating a layered ‘coat’ with aluminum on the outside and red cedar wood inside. Aluminum panels provide durable protection against corrosion, while cedar offers a warm, comfortable inner lining. This pairing is deliberate, fostering harmony between occupant and place. Wood’s natural warmth invites closeness, while aluminum’s coolness offers resistance to external elements. Together, their hollowed, stacked layers form a spatial thickness with semi-transparency, maintaining a connection between this private world and the outside. Concrete slabs and steel plates also appear throughout, celebrating the raw properties of materials. Natural elements such as trees, rocks, and infinity pools within the courtyard seamlessly integrate with the building, enriching its tactile experience.
▲ Winter courtyard
The Everyday Nature of Architecture
Life is ever-changing and complex, and so are the functions of buildings—often overlapping and blurred. Emotional needs permeate all activities, from eating and sleeping to working and daydreaming, making “comfort” the paramount demand for architecture. These demands are everyday details, and architecture strives to make life more convenient and effortless, reinforcing its presence. Comfort fuels innovation rather than hindering it, inspiring new concepts. The pursuit of poetic comfort and elegant living shapes a new order and lifestyle through every detail. Architectural “newness” does not stem from isolated forms or ideas but arises from the way of life shaped by the times. Architectural tradition is neither static nostalgia nor fixed forms; it lives in emotions, reflecting character and a unique, natural worldview cultivated over years. Today’s residences are intimately connected to daily life.
▲ Tea room
Models and Drawings
▲ Model
▲ First floor plan
▲ Second floor plan
▲ East elevation
▲ South elevation
▲ Section 1-1
▲ Section 2-2
▲ Section 4-4
▲ Node diagram
▲ Node diagram
▲ Node diagram
Project Information
Project Name: Self-owned Residence
Design Firm: TAOA Tao Lei Architecture
Official Website: __AI_S_TURL_0__
Contact Email: __AI_S_SC0__
Location: Beijing
Construction Year: 2017
Building Area: 600 square meters
Project Address: Beijing
Lead Architect: Tao Lei
Architect Email: __AI_S_SC0__
Design Team: Tao Lei, Chen Zhen, Li Jing, Zhang Jinghong
Owner: Tao Lei
Structural Engineer: Li Ge’s Team
Landscape Design: TAOA Tao Lei Architecture
Interior Design: TAOA Tao Lei Architecture
Construction: Sheng Changwei Team
Photographer: Tao Lei
Photographer’s Website: __AI_ST_URL_0__
Photographer’s Email: __AI_C_SC_0_.com
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