Inter-field Architecture & Usetian Construction | “Super Small Patio Residence” — Hangzhou Qiandao Lake Country House

The square house is located in the village of Qianjima Lake Zhangshu, Hangzhou. The base of the house is a rectangular plot of 8Mx12m, which is also the largest area that could be built in the village to Uncle Fang. The location of the base is located on the inside of the village. The house is surrounded by a three-story residential building with almost no view of the lake from the inside of the house. Due to the concealment of the volume of the building around the site, the architect decided to design the site in an “internal space construction” way, setting two vertical atriums in this small box. When viewed from the outside, it is a very simple square box, all openings are inward.
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The owner's uncle used to work in Hangzhou, and when he was a little older, he decided to return to his old town of Thousand Island Lake to rebuild the old house, while also making it easier for himself to support the elderly. So Uncle Fang made an important appeal: the hope of getting a house that could be shared by several generations. This is how he conceived the room: one floor was to be left with two rooms as the old man's room, the second floor as Uncle Fang's own room and tea room, and three floors for the future owner of the house: Uncle Fang's son to live with a family. He thinks it's best to have 10 or so rooms in the house, so that his son can stay home with the kids on weekends as well. “Home is a place where a family is happy,” as Uncle Fang always put this phrase in his mouth.
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Residential base 8mX12m is a prototypical scale. How to allocate 10 rooms in such a space, while taking into account the quality of the space, is a question that architects need to think carefully. We first set the minimum room unit size in the village residence: 3mx4m, the longitudinal 12m can be cut into 4m+4m+4m, the middle as a breathable transitional living room; the horizontal 8m is divided into 1m5+3.25m+3.25m, where the two misplaced 1m5x8m spaces serve as An extremely small but breathable atrium space. The two narrow atria form the most characteristic part of this plane, the misplaced atrium establishes the connection between space and space, the atrium is the bond that connects, the circulation of air, and the place where people communicate.

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The two atrium spaces make the actual dimensions of the room no longer limited to its only physical dimensions, and in this building the atrium is an extension of the interior space of the room. The room can be extended in the other direction from the inside of a rectangular room through a floor-to-ceiling viewfinder. One can perceive inside the room a narrow space that is almost 8m long and only 1m5 wide, and this sense of scale is impossible to imagine in the ordinary consciousness. We want the whole house itself to be a livable, attractive, and walkable inner box that can be used and lived in well, and can be visited and viewed well.
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The two narrow atriums also bring together all the traffic space, all the stairs are set up as single-track staircases, all the paths that people ascend around two vertical atrial spiral ascents, which also makes all paths go around the outermost boundary of the entire building, which also maximizes the increase There is the possibility of traveling. “The old house has always been the kind of straight staircase, not the kind of double staircase in the city. I don't like the stairs that have to turn, I like the staircase you designed, it's the same as in the old house.” Uncle Fang said so. In the interior of the old house, the staircase is also located at the end of the span. Although the new design is no longer a traditional wooden structure, the way the stairs run, the sense of scale of the space and so on can truly evoke the owner's memory of the old house. The fragments of the scale of the space in the old house, including Uncle Fata A growing experience throughout childhood.

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The atrium as a box of interior space, also a box of light and time, in this building the two atria correspond to things in two different directions, so when we sit looking at the atrium inside the room, we find that the atrium has “time”. We can see the movement and change of light, we can see the direct light converting in the morning and afternoon in the two atria respectively, we can see the light at noon almost vertical washing brushes on the wall, and so on. When we raise our heads unawares, we can also see the movement of the clouds in the sky or the water flowers that have built up on the glass skylight. Here the time of the day can be relaxed, and the flow of “time” is another comfort in country life.
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Project Information
Name: “Extremely Small Patio Residence” - Thousand Island Lake House
Design: Inter-field architecture & Usetian architecture
Location: Zhangshuishita Village, Chun'an County, Hangzhou
Principal Architects: Fang Runwu, Wang Minghao
Design Team: Fang Runwu, Wang Minghao, Ma Chi Chao, Hu Ying, Hui Min, Xu Dawei, Liu Chenglin (Internship)
Owner: Uncle Fang
Civil Engineering: Uncle Fang's Own Construction
Time: September 2020 (design) -February 2022 (interior completion)
Photographer: Ark
Text: Wang Minghao, Fang Runwu
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